As a digital marketing agency it is clearly important for us to perform well in search engine results for relevant keywords - after all, it's our job to help our clients to do the same. The landscape of Search Engine Optimisation is always changing and it takes a lot of focus and dedication to stay on top of it all and create lasting success, yet in just two weeks we have gone from no presence in Google search results to a few first page placements and some surprising ranks for competitive key phrases - Let's take a look...
As you might imagine, competing in the digital marketing niche is particularly challenging since it means competing specifically against the world's top experts in achieving high search engine rankings! I am happy to say that despite the difficulty, Crucial Web is now ranking on the first page of Google for relevant key-phrases to our business after little more than 2 weeks. We are also currently almost on the 5th page for extremely competitive phrases such as 'Marketing strategy' and 'Digital marketing strategy' - which is an very promising start for us and a great initial showcase for our abilities.
Research into the question of 'how long does it take to rank in Google' will show that numerous researchers have looked into this question and found that generally it takes new websites 1-3 years to reach the 1st page of Google and yet we have done it in only 2 weeks, without cheating or using any particularly costly processes. Excitingly, we have only just gotten started with the SEO process for our website, so we expect to improve on this ranking in the near future too. In a moment I'll explain some of how we have achieved this and how we can help our clients to do the same, but for now let's look at some keyword performance data.
First page of Google for relevant keywords
As of the 12th March 2020 - only two months after Crucial Web was registered and only several weeks after our website went live, we appear on page one of Google for about 10 relevant key-phrases for our industry. These phrases are not the most competitive in our niche, however, we are competing against extremely well resourced competitors and so a first page positioning is no simple task!
Ranking well for competitive key-phrases in Google Search
In addition to our top 10 positions, we also rank for numerous other keywords, including phrases which are not location specific and which are for topics that extend far outside of our own niche. We are currently ranking in position 49 for the phrase 'marketing strategy', which is impressive when we consider that we are competing against well established businesses, universities and high profile individuals. We are currently only 16 positions behind Neil Patel for this key-phrase and he is perhaps one of the most high profile 'influencers' in the digital marketing arena.
Great Localised Search Results in Google
We are also almost the absolute top ranking website for 'ui design norwich' and numerous other localised search phrases, which is great since Norwich is our home region. While Norwich may not be internationally known for technology, it has by far one of the best universities for Computer Science in the world and is set to one day become a key part of Britain's equivalent to Silicon Valley in the USA. Check out the Cambridge Norwich Tech Corridor website for more information on the wide range of projects that are growing in the region.
We still have some way to go rank highly for the most competitive phrases, but the good news for us is that we have barely gotten started with our optimisation and promotional campaigns. We are currently beating all of the established businesses in the region for our targeted keywords and so we will be reaching even higher in coming weeks and are very interested to see how far we can go!
Tips for Improved Ranking in Search Engine Results
Search Engine Optimisation is a complicated process that combines numerous relatively simple strategies and techniques. You can check out the SEO page on our website for an overview of the process, but here are some important tips you can use that have brought us success:
- Create substantial amounts of high quality text that is relevant to your targeted keywords. We spent many hours creating a small book's worth of information for our website that answers questions people have about our industry and the services we provide. Thoroughness and attention to detail pay off here and the good news is that you can always share more with the world as you learn more - keeping your content fresh and educating others in the process. Search engines like fresh content and a healthy amount of text on each page.
- Gain citations from relevant directories and ensure they link to your website directly. There are many website directories and reference sites that you can add your site to and there are many great tools online that will help you find them and submit your website. Be careful not to add your site to spammy websites though, since search engines such as Google may penalise your site in their rankings if you do.
- Make use of Google My Business to list your business and provide a place to gain reviews. If you have a localised business then you can add it to Google's maps, but even if you don't it is still a great idea to get listed as you will likely help your general search rankings and exposure as a result. Having reviews of your business listed in numerous places within the Google eco-system is very valuable and can generate bonus traffic too.
- Ensure your website loads quickly and doesn't have any errors. We are using Webflow to design and host our website currently and they reliably serve webpages at high speed around the whole world using a Content Delivery Network. This is working out great for us so far and allows us to have more time to take care of design and business tasks, while Webflow takes care of the server maintenance and hardware challenges behind the scenes. Fast loading pages are not only beneficial in terms of keeping human visitors happy, Google and other search engines will value your website more highly too if it loads quickly.
- Acquire quality backlinks from high Domain Authority sites. Search engines currently place significant value on the number of sites that link to your site when determining where your site will rank in search engine results. Each site is awarded an authority score based on a variety of parameters and the higher the authority for a given page, the better the result will be for your webpage when the two are linked by hyperlink pointing to your website. There are many websites that you can link to your website and it is essential to keep on top of this as your competitors surely will be. It is also important to do this in an organic way that is not spammy and one of the best ways is to write blogs for other websites and be featured by them as a guest blogger - just be sure to include a link back to your website in the blog text that they publish.
- Optimise your website's metadata to ensure your site performs well and looks good in search results. Besides helping search engines make sense of your website, the metadata (such as the page's title and opengraph image / description for social network sharing) also helps humans understand your page too. These fields determine how your site will appear in search results and it is important that people click your links when they see them as this in itself can improve your ranking, plus obviously bring traffic to your site.
There are many more tips for gaining high ranks in search engines, however, the ones we have mentioned here are enough to keep you busy for many months!
If you would like help achieving improved search engine ranking or with other areas of marketing and technology, then do get in touch with us for a free consultation. We are more than happy to design an intelligent digital marketing strategy for your project and help you reach the next level of growth and online success!
Wishing you well,
The Crucial Web Team