Where to start...

[JakeM]

I've had my website for a few years now. I'm in the service industry, so my website is pretty much static and doesn't get updated very often. The copy is not amazing, and the website is mostly image based.

I've been spending time lately on my social profiles, networking and offline marketing, as well as building consistent citations - due to my local competitors only having 1 or 2 links, and mostly relying on citations to rank.

I've also got some money invested with Google Adwords Express, but I'm looking to build up my SEO, as I'd like to feature on the top 3 results in Google local (Snack pack).

I'm sorting out some more citations today, and will be having the copy re-written to be a lot more professional and to include more relevant terms to my industry.

After that, my potential ideas are as follows:

1. Create a FAQ page - increases the text content on my website quite considerably.
2. Start a blog in order to have regular updated content (I'd like to build up a number of these and aim to schedule their release consistently; either fortnightly or monthly).
3. Guest blog on some other sites
4. Trying to build links with existing clients

Out of these 4 options, are they all worth doing? And in what order should I complete them? (which one gives the ratio for time spent to reward gained).

I'm purely trying to rank locally on Google Maps

 

[extulsftjz]

Don't forget Google My Business

It's difficult to advise without knowing what industry our in and and seeing your website and the landscape etc

Re AdWords Express - you could invest time in learning to manage the regular AdWords interface. This will give you more control and options, meaning your budget should go further.

 

[james_firmsites]

Don't do adwords or adwords express without proper tracking in place. Express does nothing to set up conversion tracking and it is a requirement of making adwords cost effective rather than blind luck.

I would strongly suggest optimising adwords before moving on to SEO unless you have a budget large enough to justify having both running in a 'testing' capacity.

I would do your list in reverse order, links are still king and content is far slower burn.

 

[JakeM]

Yep, I have got Google My Business setup, and try to update the photos regularly.

I'm not sure what tracking I have in place, but I'm able to see all of my search terms, cost per click, views etc. Adwords Express then automatically moves everything round as my CPC changes on a day to day basis. I also can view bounce rates for my Adwords campaign within Google Analytics.

My Adwords Express budget is currently £50 per month. My main outlay is in my offline marketing which currently totals about £400 per month (and is getting a strong return).

My main aim is to get into the top 3 snack pack for my area at least. I believe this is achievable.

The snack pack is as follows.

Company 1:
5 members of staff and is expanding. They have a poor to average website. Images aren't optimised and take a long time to load (even on a fibre connection). Lots of text is missing, and the content isn't great.
19 External Backlinks
23 All Backlinks
18 Moz domain score
50 citations
No reviews
Pretty much non existent social media

Company 2:
Seems more clued up SEO wise. Website is very fancy but doesn't really explain what they do so well. Has 2 employees at 2 different locations...
Used to have about 10,000 links, but now showing up as a much lower amount.
15 External Backlinks
73 All Backlinks
27 Moz domain score
Unknown number of citations
No reviews
Fairly decent social media

Company 3:
Has a website from 2011 that even has buttons for "next page", so you don't have to scroll down, and you read the website a paragraph at a time.
Strangely enough though, as his website is quite old and obviously built for slower internet speeds, it loads really quickly!
He's a sole trader.
1 Backlink
13 Moz domain score
No Reviews
23 citations
No reviews
No social media

From these stats, it looks extremely easy and achievable to gain one of these positions! Are most peoples local SEO on this level, or have I been lucky with my competition?

 

[TomJ83]

@JakeM

If you want to learn more about SEO, you should take a professional SEO course. UKBF legend, @Tin, is offering a SEO course at a competitive price. Do a Google search on "Freshbananas" and you can find out for yourself if it's worth taking the course or not.

Based on the fact that @Tin has worked with SEO services for 20 years (very experienced in my opinion) and that the price is competitive (the monthly cost is like the price of a lunch out), I can't do anything else than recommending the course.

 

[ADNattan]

I second the recommendation for Tin.

From a content point of view, don't get into the habit of writing just for the search engines. Everything you publish should be to meet a need that your clients have, not just to up the word count in the hopes Google will notice you.

 

[Lisa78]

Yeah
I agree with you @msharron
Keyword research is the main step of any SEO campaign. And always select right keyword with average competition otherwise you will face big ranking problem if you select all highly competitive keywords.

Well, I am also working on my client project but I am in a big confusen.

 

[MarktBiz]

With the right contents and the right back links coupled with the right social foot prints you are up and running. That formula always works. Keep it simple. It works for us. Contact us or sign here http://social.contactslink.co.uk/signup for social contents to increase your social foot prints.
Google loves it.

 

[Paul @ Outsprung]

Do competitor research first, take a look what the currently top ranking sites are doing (backlinks, social signal, on page etc). You want to aim to do what they are doing but better. Links still rule Google so guest blogging and existing clients would be my first port of call.

Content Marketing is going to be tough unless you know what you are doing. Producing high quality, consistent content for your blog is going to require a lot of resources or outsource it which will cost £££ if you want quality.

Also check that your website is actually going to convert a user when they arrive on your site. No good getting all the traffic in the world if your website cant convey your message and compel and visitor to buy your service.

 

[StevePoster]

@JakeM Always remember that every websites needs different SEO optimizations because not all websites are the same. One of the common mistakes is implementing inappropriate SEO to the website in which resulting to poor performance of the site.