Author: Ryan Walsh

In today’s world, you can’t just shop on the high street and expect word of mouth or store presence to be enough.

The truth is that businesses also need digital marketing to be on Google’s first page.

Because you often find customers say, well, I didn’t know you were here, and I drive past here all the time.

The reason is that consumers are bombarded with advertising from morning until night.

Through their social media accounts, street billboard advertising is an element of being “blind-sighted” because we have a marketing overload in nearly all countries.

So, people now depend on smartphones primarily to act like a personal assistant, whether it’s a wood-burning stove shop or a local cosmetic dentist; it doesn’t matter if you are a stone’s throw from them; you still need to appear high on Google SERPs.

Yet how is that even possible?

How do you get Google Business results in a city like Cardiff?

How do you get your business onto page one of Google’s organic results?

Well, the truth is, there are sadly no magic buttons or levers that can be pulled. Despite countless salespeople advertising software and services over the years that promise extremely low fees, like magic, your SEO will improve.

It doesn’t work like this.

 

Quality

So, this leads us nicely to our first point, one which is so important.

Quality is essential for small businesses, and partnering with the right SEO agency is crucial.

Large businesses, PLCs, or your FTSE 500 companies will be well-advised by the best and largest SEO companies around the globe.

Yet your small businesses are prone, well, let’s be frank, to being ripped off.

So, our first point is this: if the price for SEO services seems too cheap, it probably is.

Quality is the name of the game; it needs to override everything. Google’s algorithm can now detect spam and low-quality SEO from miles away.

Google hates spam and hates it. Quality engineers at Google, who are improving the search engine, know if content marketing, on-page SEO or the links being built are spam. It just doesn’t work.

So invest in quality work. This often isn’t cheap, but it’s the only way, and we mean the only way, of getting on page one of Google’s SERPs and staying there.

 

What is local SEO?

So, consumers can broadly be split into three categories: local, national and international.

For example, if you’re looking for a generic product, a television, you will most likely want a national company.
Suppose you’re looking for something highly specialised and highly bespoke, such as an elevator to be fitted in a new apartment or hotel. In that case, you may hire an international company, such as a business from Germany, to install it.

The company needs to hire a local SEO specialist if you are looking for a local business, such as a dentist. Who knows how Google’s ranking signals work, such as why building local links is essential, ensuring NAP consistency, and making the page relevant for different areas?

 

So, how does local SEO work?

A lot of the organic and local SEO ranking factors are similar.

However, a more precise definition needs to be that you are optimising the website for a city or multiple cities.

You do this by the following methods:

Build relevant, high quality and local links

Content marketing tailored to answer local search queries- such as “Which emergency dentists are open on weekends in x city?

NAP consistency

Google reviews

Websites with high Google EEAT yet tailored at serving a city or set of cities.

How do you improve a business’s local SEO?

Create a Google My Business account.

It’s a piece of cake to set up a Google Business account. However, time and effort must be spent ensuring it’s kept up to date and offers as much information about the business as possible.

For example, write a detailed business description and fill the box with as much detail about your business as possible. Please don’t copy and paste say from your company about us page; instead, write a 100% unique business description.

Then, add the URL to the homepage. Also, ensure your company’s NAP information is added to the Google Business profile. The NAP information should match exactly with all business citations and be consistent with the NAP information mentioned on the website, say in the footer and the Contact Us page.

Add a picture of your staff, shop front, and products to Google Business. If you don’t have the budget to hire a photographer, do this yourself for now. You can always hire a photographer at a later date and add business premises taken by the photographer at a later date.

Make sure opening hours are kept up to date. If you need to change the opening hours, say over the Christmas period, do this. This keeps your customers informed, but what it can do is tell Google that you’re actively managing your Google Business account.

Google wants to offer its customers up-to-date and accurate information. Therefore, if Google knows that your business is regularly logging in and making changes to your Google Business account, this shows you’re keeping your account up to date and, therefore, more likely to be more accurate.

 

NAP consistency

This is important; it’s something that often gets overlooked, we would say, especially by small businesses.
It’s essential that when your business is mentioned in business directories, all of the NAP information matches the NAP information on your company website.

So, let’s say your business is also listed in the Wales Online business directory on Yell and Thomson Local.
What is essential is that the NAP information is 100% consistent. Therefore, The NAP information must match on social media profiles, such as Facebook Business Page, which should match your business citations and the NAP mentioned on your company website.

 

What can happen if the NAP information is not consistent?

Well, what happens is that this can confuse.

The search engines such as Bing and Google don’t know where the company is located if the NAP information differs.

For example, let’s provide a common problem that some businesses encounter.

They may rent office space or, let’s say, a shop somewhere in Cardiff. The business expands and needs larger premises, so they move business location, but not very far, perhaps just 5 minutes down the road.

However, if the business’s NAP information is not kept up to date and accurate with the new business information, then you have conflicting business citations.

For example, some business citations on your Facebook Business page may say you are at your old business address.

Your Google Business may state your address; this is what SEO agencies call conflicting business citations. The citations don’t match; they are not consistent.

Therefore, your marketing companies can use various tools, such as Moz Local, to improve their business citations.

 

Content marketing

Your website should contain much helpful information, such as helpful blog posts.

You tailor this information to a geographic area. So, for example, you run a series of hotels and luxury glamping sites in Wales. You can start to write various blog posts/articles about, say, the 10 best restaurants locally, or perhaps you’ve partnered with a local brewery. You might want to write an in-depth article about that business collaboration.

As you do this, Google will pick up the area that you serve. Content marketing is becoming more relevant for a city like Cardiff. Therefore, because your website is more appropriate for Cardiff, you appear higher on Google.

 

Local backlinks

Earning local backlinks is another essential part of the SEO process. For example, if you gain a lot of links, let’s say, backlinks from, let’s say, an award company locally, this signifies again that you serve that area. For example, you might be voted the best Solicitors practice in your city.

Again, Google will pick up on this; they will notice that you are winning awards or perhaps getting mentioned for being a leading business and your business mentioned in a local newspaper.

Google will pick up on this: your business is gaining links from local businesses, and it’s also being mentioned a lot online. Therefore, this signals that you’re based in that city.

Positive business reviews

If many people are logged into their Android devices or their Google accounts, leaving positive reviews is beneficial to your company’s local SEO.

The reason is twofold; it signifies that customers are happy with your business and your products or services. It also shows that if 100 customers have left reviews on Google Business while in Cardiff, it again shows that your business is located in that city.

Let’s say you run a local restaurant; if all the customers leave a review when their location data on their smartphones says they are in Cardiff, it shows that your business is in that city.

This is important because businesses set up websites to rank on the first page of Google in various cities. However, those businesses might not be in that city; they could be service businesses not located anywhere near that location. Therefore, if your business is gaining a lot of reviews locally, this sends a clear signal that your business is there in that location and not a website trying to gain business in that city.

High-quality information and Google EEAT

No matter what products or services you sell, thousands, if not millions, of people will question what you sell.

In a nutshell, if you offer clear and helpful advice, and the page has a high Google EEAT score, the page will rank high on Google.

This helps to draw in more organic traffic. However, in terms of getting any company on page one, the bar set, whether “What is the best organic dog food?” or “Where is the best running trainer below £100?”, the competition will be intense, often with hundreds of businesses wanting to also rank on page one.

Therefore, whatever pages you create, whether local or organic SEO, the page needs to have a high Google EEAT score.

 

Organic vs Google Business

So, businesses sometimes wonder, should we improve our marketing to appear more often on Google Business or concentrate our efforts on strengthening our organic SEO?

We would say that if you have the marketing budget or time, you should both.

We say that is simple because a competitor will if your business is not present in both spaces.

So, you could be ranked 1st on Google Business, but if you are not on the first page of Google’s organic search engine results pages, you could be missing out on business there.

A direct competitor might occupy the top spot organically and on Google Business, which means they could attract many more customers and sales.

So, if you have the marketing budget, you need to hire an agency to improve your marketing in both areas, on Google Business and organic SEO.

 

How can you build local links?

This is perhaps one of the most complex parts of SEO in general. That is how a business can build high-quality links to rank on the first page of Google.

Well, earning links takes a great deal of time.
Good links come from respected businesses; let’s say you’ve won a prestigious business award.

Off the back of earning that business award, you might get mentioned in a local newspaper or on the award website itself. Your business, for winning, say, an innovation award for a product, might, therefore, gain a lot of backlinks.

Backlinks send link juice through to blog posts or the page to which they are connected.

What this then does is if the link directed at that page is of good quality, it can improve the authority of that page.

Which means that the page will start to rank higher. The more quality links you obtain, your business will slowly move up Google’s ranks.

What no business should do is never buy links.

Buying links is a massive mistake because the links could be spam and low quality.

These rubbish links damage the company’s SEO.

For example, Google added to its core Google algorithm the “Google Penguin Update”.

This was a significant and huge Google update.

Businesses which have been building a lot of rather rubbish links, often called “spam links”- well, these links would mean the website would incur a penalty. The penalty can usually tell that because the business has built so many rubbish and spam links, Google will apply a penalty.

The penalty means that the website is removed from Google.

 

How often should you be writing content marketing?

This depends; you shouldn’t be writing blog posts at a rate of knots.

The reason is, as with all things connected to SEO, it’s best to invest your time in producing quality work; don’t aim for quantity if it comes at the sacrifice of quality.

Quality must always come first.

One of the best things you can do as a business is sit around with your highly experienced staff and say- which questions do our customers ask us the most?

Then, centre your content marketing around writing helpful guides to help each of your customers through their buying journey.

Let’s give you an example: you might sell wood-burning stoves. You don’t get involved in installing the stoves, but you do offer to sell the stoves online.

So, the director might wonder why the SEO agency writes guides about installation and chimney maintenance on Earth when we don’t offer this service.

However, writing these guides could bring in thousands of organic visitors from Google who want an answer to these questions. They may not make a purchase, but it generates brand awareness; plus, if you manage to keep that shopper reading a long blog post, let for over 10 minutes, it’s an unmistakable signal to Google that you are writing helpful, practical advice that a customer wants to read for a long time.

When you have a blog post or page with a very high dwell time, you’re keeping shoppers on your website. It conveys that your website offers quality and beneficial advice.

So, let’s give you an insight into how Google’s algorithm works regarding SEO engagement.

So, let’s say one business has an average dwell time of 7 minutes. What this means is that the average shopper/visitor to your blog section is spending 7 minutes reading through the blog post and perhaps following internal links to read other work.

This shows good engagement.

On the other hand, if you have a business, their SEO is rather rubbish, and the page has a dwell time of less than 60 seconds. The dwell time can be checked on Google Analytics.

Then, the bounce rate is likely to be very high simply because the information might not be high quality.
So, there you have it; that’s why it is worth putting in so much effort to write helpful and quality articles for your business.

Because of the Google Helpful Content Update and the Google EEAT Update, it’s now crucial that all marketing companies write and publish high-quality advice.

The businesses that publish pages with a high Google EEAT are to rank higher in organic SERP’s from the start.

The rubbish work and the pages which don’t offer helpful information might not even get indexed by Google, meaning they may not even appear in Google’s results.

 

Which keywords should we be optimising our website for?

This generally depends on two pivotal factors: the marketing budget and search volume.

Businesses would naturally want to be displayed on page one of Google’s organic results for keywords which could draw in thousands or, if sometimes, millions of shoppers.

However, so will potentially thousands of other businesses.
Some businesses might have spent millions on their digital marketing. Therefore, it does boil down to whether the companies have the internal marketing resources to compete. Plus, do they have enough of a marketing budget to compete?

Let’s give you a real-world scenario just for a second. A small insurance broker based in a city would love to appear, say, on page one of

Google for, say, “car insurance” or “classic car insurance”- yet what stops them is significant, perhaps PLC businesses, investing millions into their marketing, possibly meaning that they can only get on page 3 of Google.

Therefore, you must sit down with your marketing business to be realistic about how far they can take you with your marketing budget.

Often, businesses are constrained in terms of which keywords they can improve to get on page one of Google.
Some will be much easier than others.

Therefore, you need to choose keywords you know and are confident you can achieve.

There is no point in shooting for the stars, with the blind ambition to get your business on page one of Google with a 5k-per-month marketing spend because it could be apparent that the competitors, the companies currently on page one, could be spending quite easily 10x that amount.

 

How many backlinks do we need?

Again, this differs from business to business.

Some businesses in low-competition business sectors could need, say, 10 links.

However, we have worked on businesses where we looked at their backlinks using Moz Pro, and the websites have had over 30 thousand quality links. Now, going up against such intense competition will be an arduous task. This is why SEO prices vary massively in the United Kingdom.

One of the main reasons is that sometimes, the businesses on the first page will have excellent backlinks. Links that the company may have accumulated over a sustained and long period. This means they have, say, 40k links, which have been built up over a decade.

As you can expect, because their SEO is firm, they have quality links and a quality backlink profile that overtakes such competition. Well, that’s going to be a tricky word. Let us reword that; it’s like climbing Mount Everest, which is problematic.

Are all backlinks worth the same?

Most definitely not.

Links vary in different degrees of quality.

Right at the upper end, you have links from websites with a domain authority score of over 100. These links are quality links, let’s say, coming from well-known companies such as Nike or NASA.

Yet, here’s the other thing that you need to keep in mind: the links, that is, the backlinks, need to be relevant.

So, let’s say your business is local, and you’re a car dealer. Well, there will not be a tremendous amount of benefit, if any, from links from the local rugby club. However, with that said, on the other hand, if you were to gain instead a link from, say, AutoTrader, well, this would be a fantastic link, as it’s from a high-quality website related to cars, and you’re a car dealer, so the link is relevant.

Irrelevant links can confuse Google. So, for example, if you’re a lawyer, yet all links have nothing to do with legal websites, they are instead from a golf club well, Google will think that the business is a golf club or a legal practice.

So, in short, the links must be relevant and high-quality.

 

How long should our blog posts be?

You want to cover the subject that you are writing about in depth.

At the same time, when writing content marketing, keep it to the point; don’t waffle on just because someone has said you need to hit a 2,000-word count.

However, long-form content marketing, that is, content marketing that has a very high word count, these long-form articles tend to rank higher in Google.

However, it’s not just about writing to hit a word count; the work has the following qualities to rank high locally or nationally.
– Needs to have a high Google EEAT score
– Need some incoming quality links
– Needs a high word count
– Needs internal links
– Need to be able to be indexed
– Needs to be helpful and useful

 

Is it worth the effort?

Well, this is the thing: some small businesses may fall off their chair in shock when they receive an SEO quote to improve the business’s local SEO.

That’s because often, top-quality SEO doesn’t come cheap.

However, some businesses don’t recognise that local SEO and organic SEO can transform some companies when done right.

It will bring a ton of business if the work is done right.

So, is it worth the effort?

Well, here’s the thing: if your business is not on page one of Google, you leave the door open for the competition to have a considerable advantage.

Because if you’re not on page one of Google, there will always be a group of businesses which are. This means that they could be getting all the clicks and all the sales, and your business could be on page 2 or beyond of Google.

Some businesses get frustrated, saying they have been in that business for over 30 years.

And the business, which ranks number one in Google’s SERPs locally, might be a relatively new start-up company in Cardiff. Perhaps they have been trading for less than, say, 4 years.

Now, here’s the thing: Google tends to rank websites that have been live for a more extended period higher.

However, if a business has strong organic SEO, over the 200+ ranking factors, it is much stronger; well, it will rank higher than a competitor with weaker SEO.

So, it doesn’t matter how long the company has been trading.

If the SEO is more substantial and better, then quite simply put, it will rank higher than the competition.

 

In-house or agency?

This is something businesses often mull over and consider for quite a while.

However, from our experience as one of the most highly experienced SEO companies in the whole of Cardiff, we would say that only your national companies usually hire an in-house team.

Generally, it’s more cost-effective for smaller businesses to outsource the SEO, perhaps to a local agency. However, carefully choose your agency; some are really good and cut the mustard. However, some agencies offer work that is of low quality.

 

Should we buy backlinks?

Most definitely not. Never buy backlinks.

Here at this SEO agency, we recommend writing top-quality content marketing. The work must have an extremely high Google EEAT score.

Also, make your content better than that of your direct competitors.

This is how your content marketing will rank higher.

For example, let’s say you run a business selling ladders.

You might write a blog post recommending the best ladders for each budget.

You could add embedded YouTube videos of a presenter stating the benefits of each ladder. This could be supplemented by an infographic explaining the ladder design’s benefits.

Further, there is an FAQ, for example, explaining why those ladders are so good.

Now, if the competition is writing bland product descriptions, yet you’re pushing the boat out, really trying to offer helpful advice to shoppers, Google will rank your website higher because it’s clear you’re offering better customer service and advice.

So, do push the boat out.

Create content marketing that has a very high Google EEAT score.

Should we buy Google Business reviews?

No, never buy business reviews to try to enhance your Google Business profile.

The reason is that Google and Google algorithms will know the reviews are fake. The reason is that companies that offer fake reviews often use duplicate accounts to leave reviews all the time and in an excessive way.

For example, the account could be reviewing roofing companies, and the next moment, it could leave a review on dental practice. These accounts leave too many fake reviews. Therefore, Google will know that the account is bogus and is just being used to leave fake business reviews.

Never buy reviews because Google will know the business reviews are fake, and they may take down the business listing.

It is far better to accumulate genuine reviews over a long period, as this looks much more authentic.
For example, you might accumulate one good monthly review over the next few years.

This looks so much more genuine than a Google Business account receiving many positive reviews in a week of opening. This looks suspicious; therefore, Google may believe that the business reviews are fake.

What should we be writing about in our blog posts?

Just write helpful advice that you know will help your customers.

Don’t think about enhancing the SEO; instead, think about helping your customers by offering helpful advice.

Then, because the advice is so helpful and valuable, the dwell time will be high, and the bounce rate may well be in the single digits, say 7%; therefore, the SEO will improve because you’re offering helpful information to your customers.
Businesses that overly focus on improving their SEO often fall into the trap of over-optimising their websites.

Which means you have overdone it. Just like cooking a nice meal or a cake, you need to get the baking or cooking just right for it to taste nice.

However, if you overdo it, it will ruin the dish.

This is the same with your company’s organic and local SEO: overdo it, go too much on, say, writing “keyword stuffed” articles, and the SEO will be damaged and not improved.

So don’t over-optimise.

Instead, always focus on publishing high-quality work.

 

How many business citations (NAP) do we need?

Well, quality is always better than quantity.

So, pick directory websites that are related to your business.

So, for local SEO, choose a high-quality local business directory, such as Wales Online.

Then, choose relevant business directories. If you run a solicitors practice, choose a business directory for the legal sector.

Make sure that every one of your business citations is consistent. If any of your Cardiff company’s NAP information changes, such as the address, update your business citations.

You might use Moz Local to create business citations, offering excellent, quality SEO services. One of these can help your business generate business citations.

 

How often should we be updating our Google Business account

You should update your Google Business account if any of the following business information changes:
– Company address
– Business name
– Main phone number
– Opening hours

Business reviews

It’s also an excellent idea to reply to customer feedback. For example, whether the business review is positive or negative, just replying means logging into your business’s Google Business account.

By doing so, you are showing Google two things: that your business is still trading, and the other is that you are showing good customer service by replying to customers and keeping your Google Business profile up to date.

Businesses in Cardiff which keep their Google Business profile up to date and regularly edit them to reflect, say, a change in opening hours, these Google Business profiles tend to get more visits.

 

Why is local SEO now so hard?

So, you might hear some SEO agencies saying that local SEO is now more complex than ever. This is true because Google has reduced the number of businesses that it displays in the Google Business results.

It used to show around seven businesses in the local map results.

Now that’s been reduced to 3 businesses in most cities, including Cardiff.

This means there’s increased competition now for those three places.

Therefore, a business’s local SEO needs to be better than ever if you want your business to appear in the Google Business results.

 

How we can help your business

We are one of Cardiff’s longest-established SEO agencies. We have offered local, organic, and technical SEO for over 10 years.

If you would like a quote, why not give us a ring?