Just a quick one today (unless I get carried away!)…

Browsing the net, as you do, I came across this interesting read, and thought it was very applicable to our business audience out there:

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008384

In laymans terms, what they are saying is that there is a correlation between PPC and natural rankings which local businesses need to be aware of. We have discussed PPC marketing before and most of you will know that some ‘keyword phrases’ cost more than others. For example, ‘Best Restaurants London’ is typed into google more than ‘Best restaurants Clapham Junction’ which means that if a person is running a PPC campaign they will be paying more for each click for the London phrase.

But… there has been some interesting research done by the guys at emarketer.

So, most people would think that its more useful and profitable to try and rank a website in google naturally (and hence gain loads of free clicks) for ‘Best Restaurants London’. And up until recently, I thought that too… But it may not always necessarily be the case.

Research has show that Google (and I will continue to use the london example above) uses there vast experience to coerce the user to click on the ‘Best Restaurants London’ PPC advert rather than natural listings. They show more ads, make them more obvious and god knows what else. After all they make more money that way! Wouldnt you do the same thing?

The result being, that if you are ranked number 1 in naturally the majority of users tend not to click on your website, but rather the paid listing (PPC ad)… I hope you guys are following!

Back to my second phrase ‘Best Restaurants Clapham Junction’. Google charges less per click, focuses less on getting people to click on the paid ads, therefore allowing the user to find the natural listings more easily. And the results are staggering:

For terms that had low paid-search prices, the organic clickthrough rate for page 1 placement on Google was 87.5%, compared to only 37.3% for organic results tied to more expensive keywords.

The moral of the story? Its not always best to try and rank naturally for the most competetive term.

Dan

Howdy Folks,

Today we would would like to talk briefly about ‘SEO Brighton‘ and why local businesses only need a very basic knowledge to understand what they should be trying to achieve to increase profit margin.

Its true – the average ‘Jo Bloggs’ who owns a business in Brighton, probably has very little idea about what SEO or search engine optimisation is all about. And we dont blame young Jo B. either!

The fact that he has to run a small business in these difficult times probably requires 12 hours per day of hard yakka, with little time left over study the intricacies of SEO.

Well, let us try and explain, in 500 words or less, what good old Joey needs to know:

1. Good SEO will increase your customer base

This is the golden rule. If SEO is done correctly, there is absolutely zero chance your business will not benefit. As Bob Dylan used to say ‘the times they are a changin’ and he couldnt have been more dead on.

Gone are the days of yellow pages advertising. More and more people are turning to the internet when searching for an emergency dentist, or the best electrician in town.

We dont like to scare you guys, but if you are not on the first page of google then you are putting yourself at a huge disadvantage. Not saying it cant be done, because great service and word of mouth still goes a long way, but you are going to find it tough.

2. What ‘keyword’ is your business targeting?

This shouldnt be too hard to work out, if you havent done so already. If you are an electrician in Brighton, then the best keyword to target is ‘Electrician Brighton’ followed by ‘Brighton Electrician’ followed by ‘Electrician in Brighton’. Why dont you try it for you business and type into google that particular phrase.

Lets do it for ‘electricians brighton’…

You will notice that there are three types of places your business can be found. They are ‘Google Places’, ‘natural listings’ and ‘Pay Per click listings’. We will discuss these briefly below.

3. Google Places: Your business needs to be in the magic 7

We have discussed Google places in more detail here and we suggest you have a quick squiz. But in a nutshell, Google returns the top 7 businesses for that particular keyword phrase and then show them at the very top of Google as you can see in the example above.

50% of internet users never go past the magic 7 – how powerful is that!!??

4. Natural Listings: The most powerful

If you scroll down past the ‘magic 7′ in the example above, you will see a number of websites which are ‘ranking’ highly. In many instances, these rankings actually pops up in front of the google places listings (if google think the site is more relevant).

Natural Listings, in our opinion, are the most powerful, because they, in most cases (when we are involved) outrank google places, and are a direct link to business owners websites.

The downside is, that its very difficult for most websites to achieve number one rankings. If they are only on the second or 3rd page of google now, it will take time (3-6 months) to jump up the rankings if we take over.

5. PPC (Or Google Adwords): Instant results

PPC stands for ‘Pay Per Click’. And these rankings are shown at the very top and down the Right hand side of the page in the example above (below the map).

Why are they called ‘Pay Per Click’? Well because if you want to put your business here, you will do exactly that. Pay Per Click. Everytime someone clicks on your ‘advertisement’ or website, you will pay a certain amount. We are not going to go into how that works here, but this amount could be from 5p, all the way up to £10 depending on how competitive your industry is.

Extremely powerful because a) results are instant. If your business want to pay top £££ your site will shoot straight to number 1 and b) you will notice the ads shaded in the browny cream are at the VERY top of the page. People click on these ads usually before anything else!

6. Summary

Hopefully now when you local business owners type in ‘SEO Brighton‘ into the search engines you will not be 100% confused (maybe only 90%).

SEO should only really mean one thing to you guys – more customers.

Clearly there is alot more to this fine art, but perhaps that conversation is for another day! Feel free to drop any questions to our resident SEO Specialist, Dan, by filling in the form on our contact us page, or calling him on 07753458058.

We are Big Fish SEO and we want to help your business attract more customers. Its as simple as that!

We are a local company, helping local businesses.

Are you a local business who has spent a small fortune on a website? Well, whats the point in having a website if no one can ever find it and read what services you offer? We are your local Brighton SEO services company who can help you grow your business in the fiercely competitive ‘internet world’.

Check out a results based example below of how we can rank any website in a short time period

See the website www.sussexroofers.co.uk? We built that website for a local company and they are now sitting at number 2 and 3 in Google. The term ‘Sussex Roofers’ has over 1,000 searches per month, and most of them are now coming to their personalised website. How does an extra 1,000 motivated clients sound to you, and how much difference would those kind of numbers make to your business? Beats the hell out of the yellow pages, thats for sure!

Back to our point about businesses spending money on websites. You are a dime a dozen right? And some of these companies charge a small fortune for some pretty ordinary looking sites! Well, we have news for you – you are throwing all that hard earned money out the window unless people can actually find your website. In a nutshell, that is what Brighton SEO Services AKA Big Fish SEO will do for you. Get your website found. Simple as that folks.

Have you heard of PPC advertising, Google Maps listing, backlink building packages, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH etc etc? Well if you have, you may need to get a life! We care about one thing, and one thing only. More customers for your business. Thats right, let us worry about all those technical, time consuming, confusing terms. You have enough on your plate right?

Here at Brighton SEO Services, we like to think of ourselves as ‘partners’ rather than you our clients. We care about our local community, and to be frank, we wont stay in business long, unless you, out ‘partners‘, start doing alot more business, fast. We want to grow with you guys, and share with you in your success.

So, if you are serious and ambitious business, and you are looking to dominate your local market, then why not complete the form below for a **FREE** assessment. We may need to contact you for additional details and information, however we will aim to get back to you within 2-3 business days with your report and recommendations. We will also send you a complimentary report on how to claim your local business listing on google. You need to be in the ‘magic 7′ as we like to call it!