<div class="gn-article"><div class="gn-hero gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-hero__image"><img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/687a235da6861294eec73166/68fa1253d49694e2acc3a7b7_651d3d5d2b816a3eaf7a4e73_6362497a05e67c904789babf_SEO%252520small.png" alt=""></div> <div class="gn-hero__head"> <span class="gn-kicker"><span class="dot"></span>Expression</span> <h1 class="gn-title">SEO 101 – 10 quick fixes to Improve your SEO Strategy with Limited Resource</h1> <div class="gn-meta"> <strong>The GO Network</strong> <span class="pip"></span> <span>1 November 2022</span> <span class="pip"></span> <span>11 min read</span> </div> </div> </div> <div class="gn-body"> <p class="gn-lede gn-reveal">Search Engine Optimization - the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic from search engines - plays a vital role in the success of your business's online (and as a knock-on effect, offline) presence.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">A well-optimised site will help you gain rank on Search Engine Result Pages for relevant keywords. But with limited internal resources, how can you squeeze the most out of your SEO strategy?</p> <p class="gn-reveal">Our agency specialists discuss the foundations of an effective SEO strategy with practical tips on how to improve your current efforts.</p> <div class="gn-stats gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-stat"><span class="gn-stat__num">75<em>%</em></span><span class="gn-stat__label">Of website credibility comes from the overall design of a site, according to research by WebFX.</span></div> <div class="gn-stat"><span class="gn-stat__num">74<em>%</em></span><span class="gn-stat__label">Of audiences are likely to return to a site when it is optimised for mobile.</span></div> <div class="gn-stat"><span class="gn-stat__num">39<em>%</em></span><span class="gn-stat__label">Of audiences will leave a site if images won't load or take too long to appear.</span></div> <div class="gn-stat"><span class="gn-stat__num">66<em>%</em></span><span class="gn-stat__label">Of consumers do research online before making a purchase, online or instore.</span></div> </div> <h2 class="gn-reveal"><span class="num">01</span>Laying the foundations for an effective SEO strategy</h2> <p class="gn-reveal">Just like a house, you need to have certain foundations in place before building out a marketing strategy, and SEO is no exception.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">We asked our experts what needs to be considered before embarking on improving your SEO strategy.</p> <figure class="gn-fig gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-fig__media"><img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/687a235da6861294eec73166/68fa1252d49694e2acc3a71b_638f78270b4c752c77633253_Webinar%2520-%2520Quotes%2520(1).png" alt="SEO is an ongoing strategy that needs continual effort to be successful."></div> <figcaption>SEO is an ongoing strategy that needs continual effort to be successful.</figcaption> </figure> <h3 class="gn-reveal">#1 - Internal buy-in to your SEO strategy</h3> <p class="gn-reveal">For <strong>Hannah Thorpe</strong>, Managing Director at <strong>Verkeer</strong>, the key thing to really grow your SEO strategy is "to have buy-in from all the different parts of the business.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">SEO will touch nearly every team within your organisation, from Marketing through to IT and development, and the likelihood is that you're going to require support from every department (or external partner) at one stage or another to be successful.</p> <blockquote class="gn-blockquote gn-reveal">"We find our most successful clients have that conversation with colleagues early on, defining the vision for digital and helping them to understand the importance of getting things signed off and implemented."<cite>Hannah Thorpe · Managing Director, Verkeer</cite></blockquote> <h3 class="gn-reveal">#2 – Knowledge of the customer's needs</h3> <p class="gn-reveal"><strong>Andrew Doyle</strong>, Head of Technical SEO at <strong>Crafted</strong>, says that you need to think about the customer before you build your strategy.</p> <blockquote class="gn-blockquote gn-reveal">"You need to understand their search behaviour, their expectations, and their intent. This will guide you in creating the best content possible for your potential customers. Google is also increasing its focus on UX when ranking websites, i.e., site speed and mobile optimisation. Getting this right is a centrally important part of strong SEO performance."<cite>Andrew Doyle · Head of Technical SEO, Crafted</cite></blockquote> <p class="gn-reveal">According to <strong>research by WebFX</strong>, 75% of website creditability comes from the overall design of a site and 74% of audiences are likely to return to a site when it is optimised for mobile.</p> <figure class="gn-fig gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-fig__media"><img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/687a235da6861294eec73166/68fa1252d49694e2acc3a720_636194276b90831c23281dee_Webinar%2520-%2520Quotes.png" alt="Quote from Andrew Doyle on understanding customer search behaviour."></div> <figcaption>Andrew Doyle on understanding customer search behaviour as a foundation for SEO.</figcaption> </figure> <h3 class="gn-reveal">#3 - An adaptable website</h3> <p class="gn-reveal">The recommendation from <strong>Dave Gayson</strong>, Performance Director at <strong>M3 Agency</strong>, is to have a website that can be changed.</p> <blockquote class="gn-blockquote gn-reveal">"It's really important that you can implement recommended changes, whether they be technical, or content led. Developer buy-in can make a big difference to the effectiveness of an SEO strategy."<cite>Dave Gayson · Performance Director, M3 Agency</cite></blockquote> <h3 class="gn-reveal">#4 – Having as much authority as possible</h3> <p class="gn-reveal">Famously, Jackie Weaver had no authority, but according to <strong>Alex Moss</strong>, Director at <strong>FireCask</strong>, "your site and business needs as much of an authority as possible within your vertical or niche.</p> <blockquote class="gn-blockquote gn-reveal">"Introduced in 2013 and updated within Google's core algorithm in August 2019, Google provides insight on how to produce the best content for a site, known as 'E-A-T' that stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. These three considerations should be always at the forefront of any content marketing strategy to ensure that Google understands that your business should rank based on E-A-T. This ranges from describing a business as a whole and a service or product it sells, to the people involved in the business and how they are an authority on the subject."<cite>Alex Moss · Director, FireCask</cite></blockquote> <h3 class="gn-reveal">#5 – Take stock of internal resources</h3> <p class="gn-reveal"><strong>Amanda Walls</strong>, Director of <strong>Cedarwood Digital</strong>, tells us that before embarking on improving an SEO strategy, "it helps for marketers to have a clear understanding of their goals and keywords/focus areas which are driving converting users.</p> <blockquote class="gn-blockquote gn-reveal">"While blogs and blog traffic are great for brand awareness, we need to be realist about where the sales and leads are coming from. This means understanding where the high intent and high value users are, which keywords they're searching for, and which pages they are utilising, so we can nurture them within the conversion funnel."<cite>Amanda Walls · Director, Cedarwood Digital</cite></blockquote> <div class="gn-divider gn-reveal" aria-hidden="true"></div> <h2 class="gn-reveal"><span class="num">02</span>Common misconceptions to avoid when improving your SEO efforts</h2> <p class="gn-reveal">Over time, many misconceptions about SEO have appeared. Things like <em>'everyone can do SEO,'</em> and <em>'if you're not seeing immediate results, there's something wrong,'</em> resurface again and again, and if you fall victim to them, they can do damage to your current marketing strategy.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">To clear things up, we asked our experts to disprove some of the most common misconceptions they've seen about SEO.</p> <h3 class="gn-reveal">Hannah Thorpe – Verkeer</h3> <p class="gn-reveal"><strong>The misconception:</strong> "That SEO is simply for robots; that we're all sat there frantically coding some secret SEO magic into the back of a website."</p> <p class="gn-reveal"><strong>The truth:</strong> "SEO is more about users than most marketing channels. SEO is about having the right foundations for Google to crawl to support exceptional content written for the right audience. It's about predicting what the audience is going to want before they know it themselves. There's no SEO magic that enables you to pick a single keyword and appear top for it without putting the work into your customer research and content production."</p> <h3 class="gn-reveal">Andrew Doyle – Crafted</h3> <p class="gn-reveal"><strong>The misconception:</strong> "SEO is a one-time activity."</p> <aside class="gn-quote gn-reveal"><q>SEO is an ongoing strategy that needs continual effort, refocusing, and investment to be successful.</q><cite>Andrew Doyle · Head of Technical SEO, Crafted</cite></aside> <h3 class="gn-reveal">Dave Gayson - M3 Agency</h3> <p class="gn-reveal"><strong>The misconception:</strong> "SEO is about appearing at the top of Google for a single, high-volume keyword."</p> <p class="gn-reveal"><strong>The truth:</strong> "While that's important and will have an impact, traffic and revenue is often driven from thousands of keywords and variations. So rather than focusing too much on a single keyword, we tend to find a more scalable approach works better."</p> <figure class="gn-fig gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-fig__media"><img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/687a235da6861294eec73166/68fa1252d49694e2acc3a70f_6361974f1c5cb9ae385b0471_Webinar%2520-%2520Quotes%2520(3).png" alt="Quote from Dave Gayson on keyword strategy."></div> <figcaption>Dave Gayson on why a scalable keyword approach outperforms chasing a single high-volume term.</figcaption> </figure> <h3 class="gn-reveal">Alex Moss – Firecask</h3> <p class="gn-reveal"><strong>The misconception:</strong> "It's only good to rank for certain terms."</p> <p class="gn-reveal"><strong>The truth:</strong> "You should consider quicker wins through more specific search terms - known as 'long tail' keywords. Being able to rank for a wider range of less competitive, but more specific keywords allows you to attract a higher quality of visitor who will likely convert at a better and more successful rate."</p> <h3 class="gn-reveal">Amanda Walls - Cedarwood Digital</h3> <p class="gn-reveal"><strong>The misconception:</strong> "The more content you have, the better your SEO will be."</p> <p class="gn-reveal"><strong>The truth:</strong> "This is wholly untrue and in fact, if that content is deemed to be thin or of little relevance to the user, it could in fact be harming your website's SEO performance. Adding new content everyday won't necessarily make your website perform better, nor will making pages a certain length - the focus should be on answering the users questions, intent and purpose and depending on the industry that could be a long or short process."</p> <div class="gn-divider gn-reveal" aria-hidden="true"></div> <h2 class="gn-reveal"><span class="num">03</span>10 SEO quick fixes to increase your website performance</h2> <p class="gn-reveal">Now that you know what to avoid in terms of misconceptions, here are ten things you can easily action to help in improving your current SEO efforts.</p> <figure class="gn-fig gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-fig__media"><img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/687a235da6861294eec73166/68fa1252d49694e2acc3a715_636197d2b8dee6cb97df721a_Webinar%2520-%2520Quotes%2520(4).png" alt="Quick fixes to increase website SEO performance."></div> <figcaption>Ten quick fixes to increase website SEO performance, as recommended by network specialists.</figcaption> </figure> <h3 class="gn-reveal">#1 – Be proactive about site health</h3> <p class="gn-reveal">"Once you've got the site into good technical health, people often stop looking. You'd be surprised how much small changes can have a big impact so set up a monitoring process for site changes and run a health check once a month." – <strong>Hannah Thorpe</strong></p> <h3 class="gn-reveal">#2 – Optimise your images for speed</h3> <p class="gn-reveal"><strong>According to research by WebFX</strong>, 39% of audiences will leave a site if images won't load or take too long to appear.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">"Slow loading images are bad for SEO as well as UX, so ensure you websites images a fully optimised. Crop the image to an appropriate display size, choose the best image file format and compress the image before uploading it to the website. Also, use true responsive image serving so mobile users only download the images appropriate to their screen size to keep performance optimum." – <strong>Andrew Doyle</strong></p> <h3 class="gn-reveal">#3 – Optimise metadata</h3> <p class="gn-reveal">"Use your keyword research to optimise your metadata across existing pages. This will help target these terms without the front end being impacted." – <strong>Dave Gayson</strong></p> <h3 class="gn-reveal">#4 – Utilise web caching for your website where possible</h3> <p class="gn-reveal">"Web caching is the activity of storing data for reuse, such as a copy of a web page served by a web server. It is cached or stored the first time a user visits the page and the next time a user requests the same page, a cache will serve the copy, which helps keep the origin server from getting overloaded. Joining Cloudflare (free) and connecting your site to it is the easiest method to get started here." – <strong>Alex Moss</strong></p> <h3 class="gn-reveal">#5 – Implement Google Search Console</h3> <p class="gn-reveal">"Google Search Console can give you invaluable insight into your website's SEO performance. It can highlight which keywords are driving traffic to your website, allow you to understand how your website is being crawled and highlight any potential errors that Google is encountering on your website - this is invaluable information for improving performance." – <strong>Amanda Walls</strong></p> <figure class="gn-fig gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-fig__media"><img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/687a235da6861294eec73166/68fa1252d49694e2acc3a718_6361958cc5a45eca9e62c88f_Webinar%2520-%2520Quotes%2520(2).png" alt="Quote from Amanda Walls on Google Search Console."></div> <figcaption>Amanda Walls on using Google Search Console to drive SEO performance improvements.</figcaption> </figure> <h3 class="gn-reveal">#6 – Make the most of your content</h3> <p class="gn-reveal">"Refresh old content that's still in demand regularly, redirect out of date content and improve on articles with potential which aren't working for you. Introducing things like Q &amp; A formats to optimise for People Also Ask in the search results or adding a section of internal links to related content can help a piece start to perform quickly." – <strong>Hannah Thorpe</strong></p> <h3 class="gn-reveal">#7 – Create a 'Google My Business' Page</h3> <p class="gn-reveal">"Local intent is often a key part of a user's search query, so ensure you have created and fully optimised your Google My Business page. This will allow for optimal SEO performance across local intent searches and Google map results." – <strong>Andrew Doyle</strong></p> <h3 class="gn-reveal">#8 – Carry out keyword research</h3> <p class="gn-reveal"><strong>66% of consumers do research online</strong> before making a purchase, online or instore.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">"Find out what your audience is searching before optimising. This knowledge can prove useful in multiple scenarios." – <strong>Dave Gayson</strong></p> <h3 class="gn-reveal">#9 – Ensure your external profiles are claimed and active</h3> <p class="gn-reveal">"This includes social media profiles that should be consistent where possible (use knowem.com for social handle checks) and that you are in control of your business listings such as Google Business Profile, Yelp and so on." – <strong>Alex Moss</strong></p> <h3 class="gn-reveal">#10 – Check your site speed</h3> <p class="gn-reveal">"Use free tools such as Google's Page Speed Insights to understand areas where your website might be slow. By identifying this, you may identify legacy products which have been implemented that are slowing your website down, or potentially quick wins that you can update to improve speed - this will help your performance in Google's Core Web Vitals algorithm." – <strong>Amanda Walls</strong></p> <h4 class="gn-reveal">Discover how to speed up your WordPress website below:</h4> <div class="gn-reveal"> <figure id="" class="w-richtext-figure-type-video w-richtext-align-fullwidth" style="padding-bottom:56.206088992974244%" data-rt-type="video" data-rt-align="fullwidth" data-rt-max-width="" data-rt-max-height="56.206088992974244%" data-rt-dimensions="854:480" data-page-url="https://youtu.be/BrY6a-lsLp8"><div id=""><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BrY6a-lsLp8" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></div></figure> </div> <div class="gn-divider gn-reveal" aria-hidden="true"></div> <h2 class="gn-reveal"><span class="num">04</span>Exploring the benefits of using a marketing agency to help maximise a brand's SEO strategy</h2> <p class="gn-reveal">To implement the above takes time, and we know that internal resource (especially in Marketing) can often be limited. Luckily, as you can see from our experts here, there are plenty of external resources available that can help boost your SEO strategy to its full potential.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">Here are some of the benefits an external partner can bring:</p> <h3 class="gn-reveal">Marketing agencies stay up to date with the latest changes</h3> <p class="gn-reveal">Due to SEO being a broad channel to work within, <strong>Hannah</strong> believes it is difficult to find someone who has the technical expertise alongside creative thinking to execute multiple campaigns at once.</p> <blockquote class="gn-blockquote gn-reveal">"Even if they do have the skills, having the time to do it all is even less likely! Agencies help you to get all those skills to support your business, as they'll allow you to move resources from a technical manager to a creative one and your support flexes to your needs. They're also in the midst of SEO, day in, day out which means they often have a better feel for what's going on across multiple industries. It's their job to stay up to date with the latest changes so they can bring forward thinking to your digital strategy."<cite>Hannah Thorpe · Managing Director, Verkeer</cite></blockquote> <h3 class="gn-reveal">Marketing agencies have a wider skillset</h3> <p class="gn-reveal">According to <strong>Andrew</strong>, a marketing agency is likely to have a wider skillset that can be utilised to improve SEO performance, such as copywriting, outreach, CRO, UX, data analysis, development, design and much more.</p> <blockquote class="gn-blockquote gn-reveal">"Having this mix of specialists at your fingertips means they can work for you on an integrated strategy that drives maximum results."<cite>Andrew Doyle · Head of Technical SEO, Crafted</cite></blockquote> <h3 class="gn-reveal">Marketing agencies can prioritise your SEO strategy</h3> <p class="gn-reveal">For <strong>Dave</strong>, it's all about prioritisation.</p> <blockquote class="gn-blockquote gn-reveal">"It's easy to get lost in the number of tools, information, and data out there. Running a website through an SEO tool will provide hundreds of actions. An agency will know which actions are likely to drive results and which are more likely to be 'vanity metrics.'"<cite>Dave Gayson · Performance Director, M3 Agency</cite></blockquote> <h3 class="gn-reveal">Think of a marketing agency as part of your own marketing team</h3> <p class="gn-reveal">"SEO has evolved in the past 10 years and has widened to require a number of varied skills in online marketing," explains <strong>Alex</strong>.</p> <blockquote class="gn-blockquote gn-reveal">"From technical SEO to social media management, digital PR to conversion rate optimisation - online marketing requires a very wide and varied skill set to improve a brand's SEO strategy on a wider scale. As such, agencies really work well as they will have team members all with their own strengths to bring to the table. Think of an agency as part of your marketing team that will help you raise visibility for the brand to help increase sales."<cite>Alex Moss · Director, FireCask</cite></blockquote> <h3 class="gn-reveal">Marketing agencies have connections and resources to get your campaigns running</h3> <p class="gn-reveal">Finally, <strong>Amanda</strong> advises that agencies have the resource and connections to help you get your campaigns off the ground.</p> <blockquote class="gn-blockquote gn-reveal">"In Digital PR, specifically having the right structure and contacts is very important and agencies will be able to get your press releases in front of the right journalists to get the coverage that you need after building up years' worth of relationship experience with them."<cite>Amanda Walls · Director, Cedarwood Digital</cite></blockquote> <aside class="gn-callout gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-callout__label">What this means for you</div> <h4>Key foundations for an effective SEO strategy with limited resource.</h4> <ul> <li><strong>Secure internal buy-in early.</strong> SEO will touch nearly every team within your organisation, from Marketing through to IT and development, and the likelihood is that you're going to require support from every department at one stage or another to be successful.</li> <li><strong>Understand your customer's search behaviour.</strong> You need to understand their search behaviour, their expectations, and their intent. This will guide you in creating the best content possible for your potential customers.</li> <li><strong>Prioritise site health and speed.</strong> Use free tools such as Google's Page Speed Insights to understand areas where your website might be slow, and run a health check once a month.</li> <li><strong>Use Google Search Console.</strong> It can highlight which keywords are driving traffic to your website and highlight any potential errors that Google is encountering on your website.</li> <li><strong>Consider an external partner.</strong> Agencies help you to get all those skills to support your business, as they'll allow you to move resources from a technical manager to a creative one and your support flexes to your needs.</li> </ul> </aside> <p class="gn-reveal"><strong><em>Start 2023 with confidence! If you're starting to assess your marketing needs for the new year, </em></strong><a href="https://www.thegonetwork.com/get-in-touch"><strong><em>let us know </em></strong></a><strong><em>your requirements and one of our senior team will be in touch to offer free, impartial advice.</em></strong></p> </div></div> <aside class="gn-related gn-reveal" data-auto="related-reading"> <div class="gn-related__label">Related reading</div> <ul class="gn-related__list"> <li class="gn-related__item"> <a href="/articles/key-advice-to-boost-your-retention-strategy-and-reduce-customer-churn" class="gn-related__link"> <span class="gn-related__category">Growth</span> <span class="gn-related__title">Customer Retention 101 - Key Advice to Boost Your Retention Strategy and Reduce Customer Churn</span> <span class="gn-related__excerpt">Subscription brands lose loyalty fast. 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