SEO is an acronym for the term ‘Search Engine Optimisation’. It’s a form of digital marketing which requires optimising websites based on Google guidelines that increase the chances of your website obtaining organic traffic from users via search engine platforms. There are different changes that you can make to your website design and content which look more appealing to search engines. As a result, the ranking position of your website on search engine results pages will appear higher for relevant queries that the user enters in the search bar. The higher you can get your page to appear, the more organic traffic your website is likely receiving.

We get asked this one a lot! If your website was previously ranking successfully for some great phrases, and then those rankings suddenly start to drop, it can have a significant impact on your business, especially if its based primarily online.

Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer to this question as there are likely a number of factors at play, and even more possible reasons. The most common causes include competitors investing more in optimisation, lack of content output, link factors or something on the website itself that is impacted by fundamental Google changes.

The best thing to do as a starting point is to get an impartial assessment or audit of your site from a reputable SEO company to determine the most likely cause.

This depends entirely on what it is that you’re trying to achieve and the timescale you have for generating results. We would always advise an integrated search marketing campaign that incorporates a number of aspects of search, rather than solely SEO or PPC individually.

An integrated approach allows complementary search marketing services to work together hand in hand, which generates the best results and return on investment. If you’re restricted to a specific budget and would prefer to invest in one or the other, there are benefits to either, and it would really depend on your goals.

SEO is much more sustainable long-term, but it does take longer to generate results. PPC and other forms of paid search are almost instantaneous, but once it is switched off, it’s gone. SEO is ultimately a much more worthwhile investment in the long-term for sustainability and ongoing cost vs return.

Choosing what reach to go for with your SEO campaign depends entirely on the nature of your business. If you have a physical presence, for example, a shop, restaurant or bar, in a designated area such as Manchester, London or Birmingham, and you’re looking to increase footfall, then a local SEO campaign would be perfect.

If your business is based online, or trades nationally or internationally, then you’ll need a more robust national or international SEO campaign to target either the UK market or all of the countries that are relevant to your business.