SEO tips for a new website

[LiverpoolEnglishCentre]

Hi all,

I have recently started a new company, Liverpool English Centre and have therefore designed a website: liverpoolenglishcentre (dot) co (dot) uk/ to promote our services.

I would like to take this opportunity to ask for any tips regarding SEO and how to bump my website up the Google search results page.

I appreciate any suggestions and hope to hear some useful advice.

Kind Regards,

Liverpool English Centre.

 

[Zelos]

Hi there,

Congratulations on your new company and I wish you every success with it. With regards to improving the rankings of your site, there's really a million things that you could do, but I would recommend you concentrate on the following first, which at the very least will lay solid foundations.

· Before doing anything else, focus on onsite seo, as if you don't, offsite efforts might not have as a big an impact as they might. If you're not sure what I mean by onsite seo, check out the "Moz" site (sorry, you'll have to Google it as I can't post links due to having less than 30 posts) and do a search for "onsite seo" on their site. The first result does a good job at explaining it and pointing out some best practices.

· Content, content, content. I can't stress the importance of niche relevant content enough. Your niche is perfect for producing content across several different types of media. In addition to regular blog posts you could product video lessons and podcasts too. It has to be quality though. Think about what your visitors want and then over-deliver. If your target market love your content, there's a strong chance that Google will too!

· Get active on your social profiles. These means starting conversations with your audience on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. As a language school, I'm sure there's tons of conversations that you can enter and provide people with value online. User interaction builds trust and authority, which are both things that Google likes.

· Look at your competition. What are they doing that you're not? How much content are they publishing? And how regularly? Try to do better than them.

The one thing I would say is that you do have to realise that SEO is a process though and it's not something you can find a quick-fix to (and even if you do, that quick-fix will end up costing you in the long term through penalties when Google does eventually catch up to you). Focus on quality and with a sustained effort you can be successful. Good luck!

 

[LiverpoolEnglishCentre]

Zelos, thanks for all that info. I will look into it ASAP.

 

[StevePoster]

Hi all,
I have recently started a new company, Liverpool English Centre and have therefore designed a website: liverpoolenglishcentre (dot) co (dot) uk/ to promote our services.
I would like to take this opportunity to ask for any tips regarding SEO and how to bump my website up the Google search results page.
I appreciate any suggestions and hope to hear some useful advice.
Kind Regards,
Liverpool English Centre.

I already visited your website and as i noticed in the meta title I would suggest to make it more appealing not in questioning your visitors and i think this will be better ex. "Learning English in Liverpool is Fun" and the recommended length is 60 to 70 characters. While in your meta description it should consist on how your visitors will benefit from learning english in liverpool and with your targeted keyword phrase (for SE ranking purposes). The most important is to make an engaging content that will generate conversation and sharing from your network.

 

[LiverpoolEnglishCentre]

I already visited your website and as i noticed in the meta title I would suggest to make it more appealing not in questioning your visitors and i think this will be better ex. "Learning English in Liverpool is Fun" and the recommended length is 60 to 70 characters. While in your meta description it should consist on how your visitors will benefit from learning english in liverpool and with your targeted keyword phrase (for SE ranking purposes). The most important is to make an engaging content that will generate conversation and sharing from your network.

Thanks for the tips Steve.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

· Get active on your social profiles. These means starting conversations with your audience on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. As a language school, I'm sure there's tons of conversations that you can enter and provide people with value online. User interaction builds trust and authority, which are both things that Google likes.

Understand that for most businesses, especially small businesses, your own social media activity is a waste of time, rarely generates sales, and has little effect on ranking.

Take a look at this article (no connection to me) and his results.

Like I said it received over 500 facebook likes…and then it got like 200 VIEWS. Wtf’s up with that?

Think about it? How can 500+ people “like” an article when only 200 people see it?

Give up?

Because most of those who “liked” it didn’t even bother to read it. And sure enough, for all the lovely likes both Exhibit A and Exhibit B got…neither article received a SINGLE sale.

and

3 likes, 200 views, virtually NO social media activity…GOT SALES!

In our own recent test, PR (real PR, sent to real newspapers) outperformed the same offer on social media by 50 to 1...

I'll take a sale today, rather than the promise of one tomorrow...

 

[Zelos]

Understand that for most businesses, especially small businesses, your own social media activity is a waste of time, rarely generates sales, and has little effect on ranking.

Take a look at this article (no connection to me) and his results.

and

In our own recent test, PR (real PR, sent to real newspapers) outperformed the same offer on social media by 50 to 1...

I'll take a sale today, rather than the promise of one tomorrow...

I would agree with you that social signals aren't one of the major ranking factors right now, but I still maintain that social media should still form part of most business's marketing plan. It's a great way to connect with your target market and also to market the content you produce, whether that be a new blog post, a helpful video or a podcast series (which would all fit in great with the OP's industry). A sustained effort on social media can help you to extend your reach. I know people get obsessed with seeing a good ROI on any marketing effort that they make, and while that's important, many people overlook the fact that building authority and trust takes time. It's not very often, no matter what industry you are in, that a consumer will see a single piece of content you've put out there and proceed to buy whatever you're selling straight after. It typically takes several repeat visits for them to trust you enough and think "you know what, this company really knows its stuff and on several occasions now has provided me with real value..."

Also, while Facebook likes and Twitter re-tweets might not factor into the ranking algorithm right now, with Google constantly trying to better understand human behaviour, who's to say that they won't have a bigger part to play in the near future. I personally think that Google+ is essential for any business now also. I'm not saying the OP should spend a ridiculous amount of time on social media and I do agree that they should vary their marketing methods and include things like PR, maybe test PPC if they have budget, and invest in some offline advertising too in local (relevant) publications and maybe posting flyers in relevant locations too.

 

[nitro23456]

I already visited your website and as i noticed in the meta title I would suggest to make it more appealing not in questioning your visitors and i think this will be better ex. "Learning English in Liverpool is Fun" and the recommended length is 60 to 70 characters. While in your meta description it should consist on how your visitors will benefit from learning english in liverpool and with your targeted keyword phrase (for SE ranking purposes). The most important is to make an engaging content that will generate conversation and sharing from your network.

Just to expand the meta description (I've not looked at your site)....... this is your chance to sell your service and the better you write the description the better your click-through rate from Google will be.

Imagine the hypothetical scenario where you rank 6th with an excellent concise description that is relevant, engaging and has a clear call to action. I would wager a bet that you will get a better click through percentage than the person in 5th whose description, in my example, is poorly thought out.

If you combine this with Google Authorship you could now improve click through even further and hypothetically you could well compete with 4th when in fact you are 6th........... and so on.

 

[expmrb]

Congrats for your new company mate. I visited your site its good in first-look wise, you should try to get some backlinks, and also i see there are multiple meta descriptions it must be removed.

 

[DrBradley]

Get your on page seo right using a plugin like seopressor.