SEO Blog

Whilst there’s nothing to suggest that you will receive any kind of major drop in rankings as a result of using duplicate content or code, you certainly shouldn’t expect too many favours either. For many, duplicating content that you’ve created for other pages of a site or seen elsewhere is the easy choice.

What could be easier? You’ve done the hard work, produced a good bit of Meta or a page of copy, replicate that elsewhere and you have to been on to a winner right? Well, wrong actually. Duplication should be a last resort. It is an option for those who have to fill a page but really don’t have the time or resources to do so from scratch.
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If you’ve been reading an old SEO manual, it’s probably best to discard much of what you’ve read. This is an evolutionary industry. It is also very much in its infancy. Therefore what worked a decade ago, might well be surplus to requirements today.

Fundamentals like a strong linking structure and good quality keyword optimised content will always endure. They are the foundations on which almost everything else is built. But the algorithms don’t stand still. What was once accepted is now frowned upon.
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When it comes to marketing a website there are plenty of options available to you. Some are more obvious than others whilst the effectiveness of each also varies. Whatever you choose to do, make sure you allocate plenty of your budget and time to it; website marketing isn’t quick and it can cost a fair amount of money to do properly.

Marketing a website is all about trying to increase visibility where it really counts. Whilst you want traffic filtering through your site, it is important that this is targeted. So whatever direction you want to push, always bear this in mind.

Effective online marketing requires a determination and focus like no other form. It is a continuous process that allows for immediate changes that can encourage quick results. If something is failing, you have to fix it. If something is working, you have to optimise it. You can’t just make a poster campaign, sit back and hope for customers to find you. The Internet is about engagement and bettering the efforts of your opponents.
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SEO comes at a cost. Whether that is simply your investment in time or having to pay for a specialist SEO consultant or agency, it is far from being free. One thing it is though, is essential. You simply can’t have a successful website without adhering to some SEO principles.

Search engines don’t just give sites rankings. A website has to earn it. They have to show the search engine exactly what they do and persuade them that they deserve a position in the upper echelons of their listings. Without a decent presence within the search engines, you will struggle to find any meaningful traffic. Whilst there are alternative marketing avenues open, SEO remains the preeminent technique purely because of the power of search engines.
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In SEO it is important that you are able to monitor the progress of your site. Whatever your metric of success is, without some measure of growth it is difficult to determine the effectiveness of your SEO efforts to date.

So what should you measure and how should you gain those statistics? Well, one obvious way of charting how your SEO work has affected the website is through the number of visitors it achieves. Okay, this isn’t a foolproof method and there are variables that can affect traffic flow that will have very little to do with your optimisation, including seasonal trends. But ultimately you want to become more visible online and the best way of indicating whether that is working is through traffic.
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Many of us are inclined to prioritise our work. This is particularly true when we are snowed under with work and don’t have the time or resources to cope. A situation that many website owners find themselves in at one time or another.

So where does everything fit in then? What should be first and what can wait? You’ve got to plan time for designing the architecture of the site as well as the on-site aesthetics. You have to consider marketing your site, perhaps with SEO, PPC, social media or a combination of the three. You also have to fill the pages with content at some point. But which of these is most important? Well, there isn’t one simple answer sadly.

Each component is essential. You can’t have a great design and no architecture to base it one for example. But I’m here to make the case for content.
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You might have notice that I’ve already rather unsubtly provided an example of how you can better improve your site’s strength in your immediate locality. There are examples of this all over the Internet, most of which are a little more subtle and better phrased than the title of this post. A website doesn’t need to just be recognised in its field of expertise, it has to be visible in its geographical location.

By including SEO Hampshire within the title of this blog post, it is more likely to get indexed for that phrase in search engines. That could in turn bring in people who are interested in finding out more about SEO services in Hampshire.

When optimising any website, the two key components that will add the most strength are content and links. Within the realms of content, one of the most important aspects is the title. This is the phrase that the search engine will pick up on and ordinarily assign most weight to. A page should only have one H1 heading, as this ought to be used to only get across the main message of that page - including keywords of course. Any other headings should only be given a H2 tag or lower, so as not to confuse search engines and ruin the strength of the page.
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There’s an old adage that you get what you pay for.  So if you pay top dollar, you can expect the very best, whilst of course the opposite is true of anything that costs next to nothing. However, is it really possible to get cheap SEO without sacrificing quality?

There are pros and cons when you look to cut corners, that’s inevitable. So here are a few things to look out for when it comes to saving a few pounds on cheap SEO:

1. Don’t believe unrealistic promises

If somebody is offering cheap SEO, don’t get lured in by the promise of untold fortunes and a guaranteed top ranking in Google. Search engine optimisation, when done properly, will take time. If they are providing an ethically run service, then they will struggle to achieve such lofty positions in a short period of time.
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SEO isn’t like so many other tasks. There isn’t a clear, linear path for it to take. There isn’t even a definable endpoint to target. It is, by its very nature, a continuous project.

Even when you get to the top of Google for every keyword you have targeted (really?!), your work still isn’t complete. Yes, you’re on top of the heap, but how are you going to stay there? How can you expand to attract new search engine rankings for more varied terms?

Your competitors aren’t going to stop just because you’re at the top. There isn’t a lifetime pass that Google hands out to lucky websites. The whole point of SEO is that it is a process of continuous improvements. You have to remember how you got to your elevated position in the first place and be aware that there will be plenty of others out there with the same hunger and all new ways of deposing those who are above them.
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Time and time again you find people publishing, and republishing the same nonsense. If you write one good article, don’t ruin its strength and effectiveness by distributing to thousands of weak sites. Perceived wisdom is that you want to get as many links as possible, true. But it is the quality links that will ultimately provide most value, not the masses of worthless trackbacks.

You might be thinking that this flies in the face of convention and what I’ve said previously on the matter, but hear me out. Firstly, article distribution is a good way to build a link profile, particularly for new or older sites without any authority. The idea is that you get many links coming in and hope to goodness that a few are very strong and so will provide added value. As it is, the many low quality links will still have a slight benefit.
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