I have found I am providing advice to my marketing and business coaching clients on search engine optimisation (SE0) and I would like to offer this SEO service to businesses in Birmingham and the West Midlands as an introduction to my marketing advice and coaching services.
I hate waste so I hate to see any business who has paid a website designer to create a very attractive website but not gain the benefits because nobody is finding it in the search engines.
There is often a huge gap between website design services and search engine optimisation.
Effective Search Engine Optimisation
Can I get you to the top of Google.com (i.e the world) for major keyword searches or any of the world search engines?
Probably not although my own Business Coaching Blog comes out at number 1 in Google.com out of 46,000,000 and my Online Profits blog is number 7 in Google.com out of 13,400,000.
The competition is very intense and if that is what you require, you need to:
a) find the best SEO consultant that you can afford and pay them to do the work
b) pay for traffic with Google Adwords and other pay per click campaigns.
My own business coaching site is high ranked nationally - see Google.co.uk search for business coach where I am currently number 2 out of 45,500,000.
Google seems to me to be the obvious way to test how good someone is at SEO and search engine optimisation.
I recommend that you try a few searches in Google which has by far the largest hare of searches for key phrases like
SEO Birmingham or Search Engine Optimisation Birmingham
SEO West Midlands or Search Engine Optimisation West Midlands
SEO Training Birmingham or Search Engine Optimisation Birmingham
SEO Consultant West Midlands or Search Engine Optimisation Consultants West Midlands.
I am sure you get the idea.
Someone good at SEO and optimising around the SEO keywords will rank on the first page for many local searches because they are trying to - it is how they can establish credibility.
Focus Your Search Engine Optimisation Activities On The Area You Need
Often businesses don't need international coverage on the Internet or even national because they serve a local market.
If you are a small accountancy firm in the West Midlands, you don't need to be top of searches nationally for "accountants".
You do want to be on the first page of the search engine results for people searching for accountants in your own town and perhaps for the West Midlands, Birmingham and Wolverhampton.
Paying extra and being found by searchers outside of the West Midlands is a waste if you can't provide a service to them and indicates that you haven't found the right balance with national and local searches.
Simple Techniques To Search Engine Optimisation
There are some very simple SEO techniques that many people either don't do at all or do badly which condemns their website to obscurity.
I am not trying to say that search engine optimisation is simple for the major national keywords because it isn't but for local searches, there is normally some low hanging fruit which can be picked easily.
On Page Search Engine Optimisation
First the page itself has to be optimised for your chosen keywords and that means positioning your page in a stream of traffic.
If no one is searching for what you sell in your area, you need to promote your business through more mainstream marketing techniques. Success in the search engines relies on people searching and that means that keyword research is the essential starting point.
If you look at the search engine optimisation issue from Google's perspective, what they want to do is to deliver to the searcher highly relevant, high quality pages about the exact search term typed in.
If you type search engine optimisation west midlands, you want to find a page that tells you about SEO services in the west midlands and not a generic page that is about Internet marketing.
So to be really effective all the elements on the page have to be about search engine optimisation in the Birmingham and West Midlands area.
Take a look at this page and use it as an example of what to do. I am obviously targeting SEO Birmingham and related phrases so notice how the words feature on the page.
Off Page Search Engine Optimisation
On page SEO matters and so does the copywriting on the page which is why some copywriters are combining the skills.
Off page SEO is even more important.
There is no getting away from it. In search engine optimisation, size and website reputation matters.
That is why Wikipedia and Amazon appear on so many searches you will do. The websites are enormous and they have a great reputation for quality and relevance with the search engines.
But it is not just about having a big website since the number of incoming links can make a huge difference to how the search engines like Google and Yahoo will look at your website.
Again there are tricks to the trade so different links have different effects and so does how those links are created.
This off page factor is a key reason why SEO specialists in Birmingham and the West Midlands should be able to beat my search engine rankings. I haven't taken the time and trouble to generate incoming links around the key phrases.
Beware of Black Hat Search Engine Optimisation
There are many get rich quick schemes on the Internet and people promising to get you to the top of the search engines.
It is not that easy as it all depends on the keywords that you are targeting and the level of competition.
There are some shady search engine optimisation tactics (which are known as black hat SEO techniques) which may have a very quick impact on Google - and meet any "guarantees" - but these involve tricking the search engines and websites are punished and can even be banned altogether.
Do It Yourself Search Engine Optimisation
There are always two choices - do it yourself or use a "done for you" search engine optimisation service.
If you want to do the SEO for yourself then I must warn you that it does take time but it is the cheapest option.
Two resources that I recommend are:
Stomping The Search Engines 2 - compensated affiliate link
This is a video training program from StomperNet, the world's largest Internet training company which is at the time of writing available for $1 if you will try their monthly journal The Net Effect. This is extensive and is only for people are are serious.
See my Stomping The Search Engines Review.
If that sounds too serious and intensive, sign up for the 7 Deadly SEO MIstakes (And How To Avoid Them) email course which I found fascinating.
If you are looking for a book to read, I recommend 299 Steps To Website Heaven by Nikki Pilkington and you can get that by signing up to my newsletter at the top of the page.
I will be very happy to provide you with Search Engine Optimisation coaching to help support your SEO work as part of a wider marketing coaching brief.
Ranking high in the search engines is only one factor involved in making sure your Internet marketing creates profit - and Internet marketing is only one way of reaching your potential customers.
Done For You Search Engine Optimisation
Since you searched for search engine optimisation services in Birmingham, Wolverhampton or the West Midlands, I assume that you would prefer to deal with a local firm.
I can recommend a client, Calloway Green who are based in Wolverhampton. Call Chris Green on 0845 0573420 or look at the Calloway Green website and their search engine optimisation services but please tell him you got his details from my website.
While Calloway Green sell search engine optimisation services, they have also written a free guide to DIY SEO which will be of interest and some times offer short seminars on SEO in the West Midlands region.
SEO & Search Engine Optimisation Can Only Take You So Far
It is great to get free traffic from potential customers from Google, Yahoo and Bing but SEO can only take you so far.
You should combine your search engine optimisation strategies with an effective pay per click campaign because of the way people search.
You also need to make sure you keep the attention of your website visitors by asking them to sign up for regular newsletters and bonus reports.
You have signed up for my emails haven't you?
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