Posts Tagged ‘SEO Sheffield’

Search is constantly evolving, changing, being redeveloped around the clock to make results more relevant, interesting and a better reflection of the displayed results importance in the grand scheme of the World Wide Web.

How do you Deem Something to be Relevant?

Of course these results, their perceived importance and relevancy, are all calculated using various algorithms designed to best interpret the information on the internet and present it to us on submission of a related query. Therein lies the problem; they are after all just machines, and whilst programmed by skilled and talented people, they will likely never truly mimic our perception of interesting and relevant. However, the benefits of utilizing such machines and algorithms far outweigh the drawbacks outlined a moment ago; they can crawl the web indescribably faster than even an army of people could and analyse the data just as quickly, hence why we don’t just employ an army of people to index the web.

Growing Use of Social Media

Then consider the advent of social media and the rate at which it has grown over the past few years; out there in the blogosphere there are millions of people publically expressing their views about what they deem interesting, important and relevant to particular topics.

It is very possible that at some point in the future of search, search engines will begin to analyse trending topics and use this information to present more relevant search results. Queries such as “new movie” may begin to return results related to films currently experiencing social media hype, or searches for more specific topics might return pages or companies frequently mentioned by users of the social networks.

The Future is Uncertain

No one knows exactly how the future of SEO is going to go, but keeping in mind the ideas above, it just goes to show how important keeping in touch with your customer or user base via an online social presence could become.

Ignition Search have always aimed to try and empower businesses by busting the myths surrounding SEO and have taken another significant step toward achieving this as Jon Colegate has come on board to join the team heading up delivery and strategy.

You may be familiar with Jon’s name from his time running Sunflower Net Media and he has become increasingly active delivering workshops and seminars in the area through Business Link and SENTA. His move towards knowledge provision has superceded his direct work for clients in most cases and the newfound balance at Ignition works well for all concerned - especially clients!

Exploding SEO Myths

One of the biggest issues that clients face when looking at an SEO solution is understanding where the jargon ends and where the beneficial services begin. Here at Ignition we have always prided ourselves on using simple language and not attempting to hide behind jargon.

We drill down into what is important for clients - generally results! - and by understanding their business and goals we offer the most relevant services that we feel will match their needs.

There’s an awful lot of misinformation out there and we’re happy to clear up these myths and inaccuracies as we go.

Jon’s seminar work focusses on these issues as well and offers manageable chunks of information that many take away and apply to their own websites.

Results Speak the Loudest

So, we find ourselves educating clients in the natural course of seeking new business and also in dealing with existing clients.

We don’t know it all. It’s impossible to know everything in such a fast moving and innovative industry, but we’re not afraid to say we don’t know and come back with an answer after we’ve found it.

The result of all this is an honest and open relationship with clients; and a relationship that produces results.

If you are interested in seeing Jon at one of his seminars take a look at the recent Business Link brochure of events or contact us here at Ignition.

As a new member of the Ignition team, I thought this blog would be a prime opportunity to share with you, the ins and outs of SEO and my experience so far as a newcomer into the world of search engine optimisation.

I probably shouldn’t admit it, but when I first started my new role, my knowledge of SEO and PPC was limited to say the least. I knew the basics but had never really given search engine strategies or the importance of rankings a second thought. In the past few weeks though all that has changed. I have now seen the ‘SEO light’ and have a whole new appreciation for the effective impact SEO has on a company’s website and overall business.

What I’ve learnt….

In an age of technological advancement, the internet is increasingly becoming a heavy influence on people’s decisions to choose one specific business over another. A company’s website is one of the first ports of call for most people and therefore could be seen as the most important marketing tool. I’ve learnt that with so many companies competing against each other in an apparent struggle to stand out above others, a solid SEO campaign can sometimes mean the difference between success and failure.

When using search engines in the past, I have always taken the results for granted and not given a thought to how a company appeared on page 1 of results, always presuming it was based on reputation rather than the keywords I had typed in. I’ve learnt rather quickly though that all web content has an effect regarding one business’ standing against another. My eyes have been opened to title tags, keywords and the importance of social media and regular fresh content.

Take the Chance

Business owners and marketing managers are sometimes more concerned about saving money rather than making it. As a result, SEO is occasionally viewed with scepticism in regards to the importance of the role it plays. Some firms attempt to save money by optimising their website themselves, but this often backfires due to lack of knowledge or impatience regarding the length of time it takes to get results. A small investment in SEO can help increase your client base, boost brand awareness and ultimately increase sales.

One of the biggest things I’ve learnt from the team at Ignition Search so far is that they are honest and realistic as to the possibility of maximising your SEO and how long that will take. I’ve seen the positive impact optimising your website can have, with a hard working team providing analytics, keyword research and link building, I have been converted into a SEO follower, and if you haven’t seen the light yet, I strongly recommend it!

Here at Ignition Search we can feel ourselves steadily drifting away from the uncomfortable side of sales. We’ve noticed that our new business meetings have taken on a very different dynamic in the last 6 months or so with prospects seeking to be educated as oppose to being sold to.

Search Solutions – Information Not Sales

We’re quite glad that in the majority of meetings now we don’t have to go through the old routine of matching features and benefits to needs and trying to ignore the vague air of discomfort that both parties feel whether on the pushing or receiving side of a sales pitch.
Our prospects are seeking to understand why there is such a shift going on toward Inbound Marketing on the Web, and we are happy to be able to provide them with our knowledge on the subject to help them understand.

Of course, we’re not giving away the crown jewels (I’m not even sure they exist when it comes to the fast changing world of SEO) but we are imparting knowledge and helping our clients to understand what we can help them to achieve through an Inbound Web Marketing campaign.

And with knowledge comes new clients.

Culture Shift Reflected in SEO

One of the best aspects of this shift toward Inbound Marketing is that SEO perfectly facilitates the buyers desire not to be sold to.

There is a strong sense of satisfaction on the part of the buyer as the notion is that he has performed his own search for something that he is interested in and found it himself. The fact that he has been driven to a site and liked what he has seen through SEO techniques is immaterial.

So, we think that the face-to-face sales techniques should be similarly empowering to the client. They almost lead themselves to working with us by asking us questions about what we do and how we do it. Our responses empower them to decide for themselves whether Search is right for them, and whether they trust us to deliver it for them.

So, we seem to be walking hand in hand toward a common goal with our clients these days. And all of us seem a lot better off for it.

Most businesses have by now at least heard about SEO. Some will already have implemented a sophisticated strategy themselves, others will have employed an agency to do it for them, whilst yet more will have considered it and dismissed it without properly understanding the benefit that SEO can bring to their business.

We will help you to understand why you should integrate an SEO strategy into your business.

Why SEO?

A strong search engine optimisation solution can make a massive difference to sales, lead generation and brand exposure.

The results are extremely focussed, transparent, flexible and quantifiable. Above all, the results provide you with exact information on which you can base sound business decisions on facts and figures as oppose to a feeling or a whim.

It’s Easy to Implement an SEO Strategy

As soon as you embrace the concept of SEO, the rest is easy. It’s the initial feeling of trepidation that holds back a lot of businesses that could be benefiting from a well thought out campaign.

Once you have found out how much search volume there is for your product or service all you need to decide is whether or not you wish to compete for this traffic. We can help you ascertain if it seems worthwhile that you implement a campaign and then tailor a strategy to meet your needs and budget.

Take the Plunge

If you are looking for a transparent, cost effective and measurable way to generate sales and leads for your business then look at integrating an SEO strategy into your business model.

It’s far easier than you might think!

Ignition Search has recently begun working on the SEO for the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce website.

The Sheffield Chamber of Commerce were voted National Chamber of the Year 2008 and were runner-up in World Chamber of the Year in 2009. The accolade for the Chamber of the Year was judged by Qdos Consulting and the presentation was made at a high profile event at the National History Museum in London.

The award was based on the extremely high standards the Chamber has achieved in terms of delivering top quality customer care and services to its members. Additionally, the Sheffield Chamber has succeeded in attracting record numbers of members, exceeding the 2,600 mark which is a tremendous achievement.

Here at Ignition Search, we are helping to further increase the exposure of the Sheffield Chamber website and attract new members as well as promoting member benefits and services. There is a huge scope of services provided and we are focussed on promoting all of them in the right way for the benefit of all.

Additionally, we have become the Chamber’s preferred supplier for Internet Marketing services so we are happy to talk to any current and prospective members about how we might be able to help, or even just to advise on strategies.

We are proud to be associated with the Sheffield Chamber and proud to be representing the City of Sheffield and helping local businesses to achieve their goals.

As the credit crunch continues to affect just about all types of business a lot of the large well established Internet Marketing agencies are also feeling the pinch.

It is widely reported that many of the big players have lost a considerable number of good brand contracts as the household names begin cutting costs and bringing their solutions in-house.

So the agencies are left with plenty of talented people sitting around with no projects to work on and the bosses are left scratching their heads and trying to find new services to attract clients.

Here at Ignition Search we have continued to have enjoy success with our Local SEO model. We focus on delivering local and regional solutions to businesses that only wish to trade within a certain geographical area. Sure, the astronomical fees and lucrative retainers do not apply here, it’s more about matching up a price to what the client can afford and what we feel will bring a decent return on investment to the client; but it’s a solid model and it really works.

Our SEO Sheffield project in particular is achieving great first page positions for numerous clients across our great city. Bolstered by our newly secured position as preferred supplier for the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce – National Chamber of the year – our service is going from strength to strength. And as soon as the clients begin to see the benefit of attracting targeted traffic and gaining enquiries we can start adding in other services to support the local model.

So whilst the fallen London giants are licking their wounds, we are steadily increasing our client base and scope of services and making a big difference to the companies right on our doorstep.

Sometimes an Internet Marketing project will not quite run as smoothly as we all think it will when we start! Luckily our service list is comprehensive enough for us to find a solution even if it’s not the most obvious one at first.

We recently took on a client that had a really straightforward offer, there was plenty of search volume for their service and the website was fairly good looking, and more importantly, geared up for strong SEO performance in the Search Engines.

However, despite driving tons of traffic through our local SEO service combined with Pay Per Click management we suffered from vey low conversion rates. We couldn’t work out why and tried a load of different combinations of advert text, we split tested, we experimented with the time that the ads were shown and we constantly adjusted the keywords. All to no avail. We were tearing our hair out.

Then we started thinking outside the box. We had several meetings with the client to go back over the original brief and to try and understand even more about their target market, how they normally got new customers, what other methods they had tried in the past etc. We decided to try a Social Media project. The rationale was that we could show adverts to a very specific demographic, broken down by gender, postcode etc.

The early signs were good; quite a bit of traffic but not too many enquiries. So we designed a landing page specific to the project and tweaked the look of the advert. Suddenly the enquiries started flooding in, some by phone, some via the online form. We suggested a special online offer. More traffic resulted and even more new customers.

The client is obviously delighted and so are we. It is proof if ever it was needed that in order to succeed we need to work together with the client to get results.

Whilst wading through the search engine optimisation articles over the weekend I found some useful stuff on local SEO which will really help us deliver our SEO projects.

There were a few articles on good strong link building that can help get solid results in terms of rankings. Link building is not exactly straightforward as everyone seems to have a different opinion on what makes a good link and there is the added problem of the search engines continually changing their minds about what constitutes a quality link as well.

However, there are some universal similarities of opinion emerging that will really help our clients that are currently receiving the SEO service. The golden rule seems to be to get links from authority sites, with high page ranks that are also relevant to the site that we are linking to. Quality is definitely preferable over quantity.

Of course, adding fresh content is just as important as getting quality links. As long as it’s relevant. But good copy writers can be hard to find, particularly ones that also understand how to write from an SEO perspective. Fortunately we have a great team here with account managers, programmers and even directors that can turn their hand to penning a good article when they put their minds to it.

So we are adding articles to our SEO service as standard. We’ve got to keep the clients happy by getting them results!

We experienced another classic example yesterday of SEO encountering scepticism and being judged on results, whilst the same cannot be said for almost any alternative form of advertising. I never hear anyone placing an advert in a newspaper or directory on the condition that they write business as a direct result on threat of not paying for the advert. That’s just not how it works.

And yet clients insist on proof of return when embarking on an SEO project. It’s a good job we can deliver a return!

Whilst pressing on with our SEO Sheffield campaign we have yet again come up against ‘that’ directory (and others) as the main competitor in the eyes of the potential client. It’s understandable because these forms of advertising are almost an institution, so ingrained are they in our thought processes when it comes to advertising our business.

And yet we do not seem to be playing on a level playing field. I always ask whether or not they know how many people will look in that directory for the service offered by the client on a given day – nobody can ever tell me. I can tell them exactly how many people were looking for their services via the internet on a given day. I hear owners of businesses say things like, “well we need to be in this directory because everyone else is in there”, or “it’s a necessary evil”. I even hear people bemoaning the cost to appear in such a directory. I tend to enquire after how many leads the directory has generated for their company and hear the same answer, “I don’t know but I think it must be a lot.” And in the same breath they are complaining about the lack of new business. In short, they stick with what they know despite unknown results.

We can offer our clients a truly transparent, cost effective service that offers real return on investment. Once we get a foot in the door we are able to prove indisputably that our SEO service generates leads for our clients. Even the firms who were formerly adamant that a directory was the only way forward. We have happily run alongside their other advertising ventures and consistently outstripped them in terms of performance and cost efficiency. The result is that we prove our SEO service works.

So we are in fact changing the way our clients think about internet marketing and are enabling them to embrace the new methods of generating business. Most are reducing their spend with directories and local press and ploughing more into Search Engine Optimisation because of the excellent return that they receive. I think it is still important that a firm has presence in directories, but not at the expense of sound economic sense.