As a website designer, every project is unique. In fact, as a professional, you are regularly expected to provide something better than your previous effort. With the market becoming extremely competitive, creativity is always a bit part of this job. The worst moment happen when that imaginative spark required to start off a project goes missing. Still, there are many places such as this page where you can draw some inspiration. Apart from that, there are other premium websites where you get lots of inspiration to build a classic website and web design companies such as Absolute Summit has great templates on their site. We’ve put together a list of some of the best sites to find website design inspiration for you below:

(Don’t forget that in order to rank these websites you will need SEO, check seo bournemouth services for more information)

1. Best Website Gallery (BWG)

The website which is managed by David Hellmann is a unique meeting place for web design inspiration. If you’re developing a premium website, this is the perfect site to visit whenever you need to unlock your power of imagination.  Although the website was start in 2008, it has grown to be relied on by millions of web designers across the world looking for inspiration. What makes it popular is accessibility of information. BWG uses a robust tagging system that makes it very easy for the user to find inspiration based on the functionality, style and design approach. With more the 2,000 top quality website to peruse, this is indeed a great place to visit.

2. CSS Nectar

Apart from incredible inspiration, this is one of the most user-friendly websites to visit. CSS Nectar is one websites that makes the finding web design information for specific sites very easy. With its tags and filters, you can easily find inspiration based on category, colour tags, feature, and country. What makes CSS Nectar popular and attractive designers is the triple-vetted content. First, the user is required to pay a fee to submit a website for review. This is meant to prove that people are confident with the website. Second, the submission is reviewed and finally, it is voted by the community. This system gives the sites feedback so it’s easy to see what people like and don’t like about the digital art and design of each site.

3. Abduzeedo

The website whose name simply means “abducted” in Portuguese, is about a decade old. Over the years, it has helped hundreds of web designers. What has made it popular among designers and creative professionals is its regular updates. There is always something new for the users to see. The website boasts of having an array of inspirations regardless of the website that you are creating. You’ll be impressed by the quality of information that the website has. A visit to this site will help in triggering your imagination with brilliant ideas. Apart from digital design inspiration, the website also offers other inspirations such as photography and architecture.

4. Behance- Discover

Visit this website and you will find massive amount of website design inspiration from their creative community. It is very easy to locate the design you are looking for by either looking for popularity, location and timeframe. For instance, you can search for the “most appreciated web design in Brisbane, Australia”. The fact that it’s part of the adobe family of companies, its’ probably the world’s most active creative community. Its detailed filtering options make it one of the most visited sites by web designers

and creative professionals. Try it and it will unlock your creativity in a great way.

5. Awwwards

The website provides a unique place for web designers to draw inspiration. The website is managed by a group of international creative who rewards those that submit the highest quality of design. This is what makes the quality of inspiration from this website incredibly high. The jury that awards the best site ideas is hand-picked to ensure that quality is maintained. Apart from the website looking pretty, they also consider other factors like creativity, content, usability and site design. Awwwards has one of the most robust tagging that makes it easy for the users to find the inspiration they are looking for.

6. Designinspiration

If you are stuck with a web designing project, try this website and experience the magic. Created in 2010, the website has been home to many web designers worldwide. The site provides a perfect place where web designers can discover and share information. The site curates and maintains only high-quality content. It’s a user-friendly website and you can easily search information by topic tags or colour. The site also allows the user to organise and save things that they like on the page.

If you have marketed online for long enough, you will remember the good old days when all you needed to write valid SEO content was to ensure you had a certain number of words and within them, a specific percentage of the keywords you wished to rank for linking to your pages. It was very simple and worked effectively at the time. However, these days have long gone and now writing good SEO content is much more complicated than the old simple formula.

In this post, Martin Reaves from The Search Equation gives us some tips on writing SEO. He says when writing for SEO It is important you see things from a customer’s point of view and write in a way that appeals to their perspective. So rather than telling the customer what you do, you need to get the point over how they will benefit from your services. In other words, it is about showing prospective clients what they will get from you.

Keywords

In the old days, keyword density was considered important. There was a lot of effort put into finding which keywords would be lucrative, and these would be placed a number of times on the page, with an exact anchor text link going to the site you wanted the keyword to rank for.

These things may still have some impact but they should not be your priority, as keywords do not mean the same thing these days. There is no longer clearly defined way of ranking for a specific word or phrase. However, having said that, you should still use your keyword or better a variation thereof in the title of your post, in the subject heading, and once or twice throughout the body of the copy.

The keyword you wish to rank for should be your guide as to the content of your post. So if you want to run for “tapas in Barcelona” for example make sure your post also talked about types of tapas, best areas for tapas in Barcelona, best restaurants et cetera. This is a far more effective way to write good SEO copy these days than simply including the term tapas in Barcelona in your titles and once a twice about the content.

Keep your readers on the page

The amount of time a visitor stays after landing on your page has an effect on how well the page will rank in the search engines so you need to keep them reading. This is not only for SEO purposes, but also because an interested reader is more likely to become a paying customer.

Use lists and bullet points to help break up the content, and also use lead in sentences or finish a paragraph with a question that entices a visitor to keep reading, remember to always check for grammar mistakes or ask someone to proofread it after you are finished. You have to be careful with lead ins, because you do not really want your post to sound like a commercial, so use sparingly.

Supplemental content

Supplemental content is a piece that is published to help visitors find other relevant parts of your website, for example, your blog, a downloadable item, or a product you sell. Supplemental content should be helpful and relevant offering the user a meaningful experience, rather than just a way to advertise your products.

Google’s own YouTube is a good example of a site that uses this type of content. When you have finished a video, you are lead to a similar video, which keeps you on YouTube, while at the same time offering you something you are likely to find useful. Again, be careful when using this type of content and do not implement it too much, as it can go from being useful to distracting.

Reading Levels

When writing SEO content you should write in a way that would appeal to a person of around 13 years old. Do not use long words when short ones will do. In fact, do not use any words that could be classed as redundant. Having said that, it is important to think of your audience. If you were writing for a medical journal for example, you would not want to write in such a simplistic style, so always consider the user along with the search engines.

Finally, do not think of SEO writing as a way to improve rankings.

While rising the ranks is obviously important, when writing for a website, the most important factor we should be thinking about is turning a visitor into a customer.

Researching the logo of competitors.

Logo’s are represented all over the world. To create a unique and creative logo takes time. Competing companies can be widely known for their logo design along with the name that is attached. A logo designer cannot possibly create the best logo design without looking into the market first.

A logo designer has to look at popular brands design and figure out why their logo has some much prestige. What makes their logo more unique than their counterpart? A series of questions must be asked before pen or pencil hits the sketching paper. Websites such as freelancer.com or 99designs.com offer logo contests, but in my opinion, it is better to work with professional logo designers who can meet and adjust to your requirements. Logo design is afterall an iteration process. Josh here at Graftene or the guys at juicylogos.com can help with your logo design.

Keeping the logo original.

        The artwork of a logo must always be original artwork. No one, more precisely consumers, is interested in buying the product of a brand that duplicates someone else’s logo. Of course, it is unlawful to use the same logo as another name-brand, but trying to imitate the logo even slightly is detrimental to business. An original and well-made logo will help the company stand out and possibly generate more sales.

The logo’s distinct artwork will separate a company from its competition, hopefully creating a great name for the business within the industry.

The process of logo designing.

        A logo does not become a logo until there is an original vision set forth. The client will consult the idea with the logo designer before a sketch is created. After vigorous research has been conducted, the logo designer sits down and begins the drawing process.

The will view the finished sketch design and decide whether or not the logo will fit with their name. It’s imperative that the logo and the name of the company match together well. The illustration of the logo must be able to provide some type of feeling or give some kind of meaning to the consumer. If the client does not like how the design looks, then he will instruct the logo designer to sketch out a similar or different design.

The meaning of the logo.

        What will the consumer think when he/she picks up the product and looks at the logo. What feelings will this provoke? Just like it is stated in the above paragraph; a logo needs to be meaningful as well as representative of consumers and the company itself. A logo of a dog on a Coca-Cola product could confuse a handful of people unless the brand and the logo can correlate. This concept should be common sense, however; it is easy to lose sight of what the brand entails when thinking about a logo design.

If the logo provokes angry or negative feelings, it should not be used to represent the company. There may be a few exceptions when dealing with negative logos such as Halloween brands and intentionally harmful products.

The font and text of a logo.

        Not every logo design needs text to be added to it. However, some companies tend to opt for this idea, emphasizing the name of their branding design. There are many modern fonts, but the best font will always be the one that stands out the most, a font that not every company is utilizing. How do you know when the chosen font is the right font? That is solely up to the client and the rest of the enterprise.

Take Coca-Cola for example; Their logo is primarily a cursive font. The name of the font is called the Spencerian Script, an old font created by Frank Mason Robinson in the late 1800’s. Imagine the Coca-Cola logo written with a different script. The logo would no longer be unique, nor would people be able to easily recognize it. The populace tends to have an easier time remembering visuals than they do letters and numbering. Coca-Cola executed their logo design wonderfully by using a unique lettering design.

Making money online can be great for many people who are looking forward to some extra cash. Not everyone can step outside of their homes every day of the week just to work. A home job on your computer is a perfect example of making money online. Making money online doesn’t mean that you have to consider it a job. An individual may be an independent contractor or someone who sells products online. The routes in which one could take to make money online is many. Let’s explore some of the roads.

1. Selling Goods Online

If you have a very unique skill in arts and crafts, you could very well be selling your artwork for some extra cash. People will bend over backward just to have a painted portrait of themselves. However, not everyone possesses the talent to draw or paint.

Can’t draw a stickman? If you are able to craft together something handy or different, people will appreciate the effort and labor you put into making your product. They will most definitely pay you for skilled craftsmanship. If you are ordering products to sell, make sure that you get special insurance for your products in case they get damaged during transit or you receive faulty stock. If you not a crafts person, maybe you could get into selling Dash Cam’s online.

2. Becoming a Freelance Writer

If you have the skill to write and research, then freelance writing is a good way to make more revenue. Moreover, it’s a good way of marketing yourself, your expertise and your clients. Freelance Writing jobs are posted on job boards either locally or internationally. This is a perfect full time or side job for anyone who doesn’t want to leave the house. It is also ideal for those who dislike working for employers and prefer to be self-employed. Writers can also choose to create their own blog, many of the biggest blogs started from humble beginnings. If you got a passion for writing and can generate traffic to your blog, there is a lot of potential to monetize your blog.

3. Web designing

Web design is a job for those who are detail oriented and enjoy tinkering around with web pages. Many people around the world today need web designers to make sure their website looks customer friendly. This can turn into a well-paying job if you are able to hold work consistently.

4. Posting YouTube videos online

Have an engaging personality you’d like to showcase to an audience? YouTube is a remarkable conduit for making money and building a fan base. It doesn’t matter if you’re interested in video gaming, cooking, or just screaming out load in every video. If the viewers like your content, YouTube will pay you for advertisements along with a number of views you accumulate.

It is important to know that acquiring a fan base may take some time. Money may have to be invested for high-quality videos before you can really think about getting paid. It just takes patience and consistency.

5. Becoming a teacher or tutor

Many people around the world would like to have someone help them learn a new language. You are only a few clicks away from connecting with someone and teaching them the basics. If you are a native speaker of a particular language, you should offer to teach someone in need of learning. This doesn’t ever have to be done outside of the house because of inconvenience.

Teaching someone how to read, write, or even do math is a way to make money. If the client feels like he/she is progressing by learning the concepts they did not know, they will continue to pay you and even refer you to someone else they know.

Teaching someone can extend beyond just teaching someone a new language. You can be a course tutor, creating and selling courses online is a fantastic source of income. Many course tutors go on to sell their courses via their website or platforms such as Udemy.

5 Mobile Marketing Tips That Drive Sales 

In many ways 2015 was the year of mobile marketing and the trend towards mobile-optimized content isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. With 6 billion mobile devices in use already and more being activated every day, mobile marketing has never been more important or more integral to a company’s future success. No matter where you are, this is a global trend, our web design partners in Cuba feel the same. Here are 5 smart mobile marketing tips that will help drive sales and convert casual surfers into loyal consumers:

1. Embrace the Power of SMS

Short Message Service, or SMS, is just a fancy term for texting. Businesses are finding success using SMS as a delivery system for information, particular when the messages are customer-oriented and include coupons, sale details, or other discounts. The advantage of SMS is in its immediacy. Not only can deals be sent out on a spur-of-the-moment basis, allowing marketing departments to advertise last-minute promotions, customers are also more likely to respond to text messages in a speedy fashion: while it takes consumers an average of 90 minutes to respond to an email, they respond to SMS messages in an average of just 90 seconds.

2. Make Your Social Media Mobile-Friendly

Everyone talks about the necessity of making your business website mobile-ready, but it’s equally important – if not more so – to ensure that your social media pages are compatible with a wide range of mobile devices. To do so:

• Resize your graphics. Pics should be no larger than 620w x 412h pixels.
• Pin important posts to the top of your Twitter or Facebook profile to make sure your key content is seen regardless of the smaller displays
• Incorporate visual content. Image-driven posts are twice as likely to garner a “like” than text-based updates.
• Review your links. Your own website may be mobile-friendly, but what about the sites you’re directing your readers to?

3. Optimize Your Apps

When asked whether they would rather give up drinking water or delete all their apps, 85 percent of consumers said they’d prefer being thirsty. People are serious about their apps, and businesses should be taking advantage. Make sure your app is responsive, meaning it automatically senses and adjusts to the size of the user’s screen, incorporate personalized features such as location-based marketing, and encourage subscribers to opt-in for deals customized to the preferences and personal details they provided.

4. Reward Interaction

As consumers jump on the mobile bandwagon and interact with your business via their mobile device, reward them accordingly. Offer deals and discounts in exchange for reviews or check-ins, run contests with multiple entries based of sharing and liking posts, or run polls or surveys that award prizes based on participation. Giving your subscribers something they like in return for their attention, assistance, and patronage builds loyalty, and the more loyal your readers are the more likely they are to purchase something.

5. Integrate Your Channels

Mobile marketing is ridiculously powerful, but it’s still just one part in a large, multi-faceted puzzle. A successful marketing plan takes place across all your active channels – social media, SMS, email, mobile apps, QR codes, banner ads, etc. – by strategically designing print and digital collateral for each channel that fits in with the rest of the campaign without being repetitive or redundant. The proof is in the conversion rates: 43 percent of those polled were more likely to purchase a mobile deal that was part of a larger, multiple-channel campaign.

Author Biography

Sophorn Chhay

Sophorn is an inbound marketer specializing in attracting targeted visitors and generating sales qualified leads. Through Trumpia’s SMS marketing automation solution he helps businesses and organizations communicate effectively with their customers or members. Watch Trumpia’s 5-Minute Demo on how to execute an effective mobile marketing strategy.

What is HTTPS/SSL?

HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure is the communication between the browser and web server. HTTPS encrypts the communication between your browser and the webserver so that the data you transmit remains secure from external sources (ie your neighbour or the government). HTTPS indicates the websites authenticity and can be recognised by the green lock icon in the address bar.

HTTPS uses the protocol Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to achieve this. HTTPS and SSL have different meanings but most people in the SEO industry will use the words interchangeably as they effectively mean the same thing.

If you don’t have a domain name yet or thinking about changing your domain, please read this guide on how to choose a domain name.

Why use HTTPS?

Because Google says so! Google has officially declared that https is one of the 200+ ranking signals used for determining a site’s Search Engine Ranking Position. How much of a factor it is as a ranking signal is the big question. It certainly doesn’t weigh as much as quality backlinks or good on-site optimisation but every little helps, according to Moz.com search engine ranking factors for 2015, there is a correlation between higher website ranking and https.

Another important reason to use https aside from the SEO benefits is because it is due to be the industry standard in the future, and browsers are looking to display website address lacking https with a red X so that it appears broken and unsecure to users. This of course affects user experience, bounce rate and indirectly SEO.

HTTPS Setup and the Cost

I guess the biggest reason why people aren’t jumping at the chance of using https if it has additional benefits is because of cost and expertise required to set it up. The cost will typically set you back $100 a year and over $1000 for the more expensive certificates.

Setting up https/SSL does require some server and webmaster knowledge. Many hosting providers offer the service to set it up for free or with additional cost if you purchase the SSL certificate from them. I hear Hostingstep has some awesome coupon deals you could try out. If you are looking to set it up yourself, then make sure you do it correctly and have the following:

• Make sure the url is working – so https://via.vision works and the website can be viewed. This is obvious but many people set up their https whilst unable to visit their https address!
• Redirect all address to the canonical address which is the https version, for example http://graftene.co.uk should redirect to https://via.vision.
• Use 301 permanent redirect, not 302 temporary redirect.

The above tips will make sure you don’t lose any SEO points for attempting to use https on your website poorly.

Conclusion

The conclusion is that switching to HTTPS will have additional immediate benefits in the form of better security and hitting one of Googles ranking signals for SEO, as well as long term benefits as Google intends for all websites in the future to use https. So why not get in there sooner rather than later?

The obvious drawback is the cost and the sheer hassle of setting it up. You would first need to purchase a certificate from $0-$1000, and then configure your website and server to set it up. After that you would need SEO knowledge to make sure your new website address with the https does not affect your site ranking negatively. You can do this by following the best practices for setup mentioned above.

If you’ve recently switched to HTTPS or are thinking about it, let us know about your experience or if you have any questions post in the comments below.

If you’re still confused then our good friends at Blank are great technical seo consultants that may be able to help!

Digital Copyrighting and why it is very important

What is Digital copyright?

This is a legal ownership claim to contents that are published online and covers your data from breach. These content may be digital, media or print. When you get a copyright for the work that you have published online, you are recognised as the original legal owner of that work and you have full rights and control of how that work (online content) will be used. It also ensures that you are in control of all the profit making business that content is involved in.

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), everything that is published online is secured under the copyright law, notwithstanding whether it has the copyright sign on the page or not. The copyright law secures all the forms of the contents published online.

Digital patenting is the one that brings plagiarism into light. Whenever you are publishing any content online, be it in your website or blog, it must not be plagiarised or it should not match any other work that has already been published online. Plagiarism should not occur under any circumstances. Even if it is done incautiously, it is still taken as an illegal act. Also ensure that the content is proofread, either manually or using a proofreading tool.

What is the risk behind not having a copyright?

If you come up with some original idea and you publish it online in form of media, print or digital content without first patenting it, you are at risk of the work being stolen and being used by someone else. And remember this thief did not sweat even a drop for that content.

The most unfortunate thing is that even if you realise that someone else is making a living out of your work, you will not have any regal right to challenge him or her since there is nothing to show that you are the legal owner of the claimed content.

So, what next; where can you acquire a digital copyright?

There are different law firms throughout the world that are into the business of protecting the owners of the digital publications. All of these firms are mainly concerned with the Digital rights to download and copy online materials. They also deal with the sharing of news content, textbook material and journal articles.

Among the many, one of the very prominent companies is the faipatents.com, which is an International Patent Filing and Prosecution Service that operates in USA and Europe.

Just starting this Complete SEO Guide? Start here!

Previous Articles:
1. Complete SEO Guide – On-site SEO
2. Complete SEO Guide – Off-site SEO
3. Complete SEO Guide – Local SEO

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On-Site SEO Tools

• https://kwfinder.com/

Influencer outreach and link building

• https://ninjaoutreach.com/

Help with finding long tail keywords

• https://adwords.google.co.uk/KeywordPlanner

Keyword research tool

• https://moz.com/researchtools/keyword-difficulty

Get keyword difficulty

• https://www.google.com/webmasters/

Essential Google Webmaster tool

• http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster

Essential Bing Webmaster tool

• http://www.google.com/analytics/

Essential Google Analytics tool for traffic insight

• WordPress Yoast SEO

Essential WordPress SEO Plugin

• http://www.siteliner.com/

Find Duplicate Content

• https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

Optimise Site speed with this tool

• http://xml-sitemaps.com

Generate Sitemap

• http://tools.seobook.com/robots-txt/generator/

Generate Robots.txt

• https://www.woorank.com

Website Audit

• https://www.found.co.uk/seo-tool/

Free On-Page Audit

• https://moz.com/researchtools/on-page-grader

On-Page SEO Audit

• http://nibbler.silktide.com/

On-Site SEO Audit

Off-Site SEO Tools

• http://www.semrush.com/

Get traffic data of any website and traffic for specific keywords

• https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/

Get DA/PA and backlinks/social metrics data on any site

• https://ahrefs.com/

A huge range of SEO tools

• http://linkprospector.citationlabs.com/

Find potential backlinks

• https://majestic.com/
• One of the major SEO tools
• Screaming Frog

Multiple SEO tools

• SEO Quake

Browser plugin for SEO check

• CuteRank
• Track SERP rankingsFind That Email
  Find That Email is a state of the art email finding tool. With features like domain search you can immediately find the email addresses of millions of professionals at the click of a button directly from the browser. Find that email aims to cut your prospecting time considerably.
  Their free package includes 50 searches and 100 email verification credits. Don’t forget to try their Chrome extension to discover emails in social networks.

Local SEO Tools

• Moz Local

If you are feeling lazy with creating local citations and want them all neat and tidy, Moz have launched Moz Local. They will submit your site and NAP+W details to the 4 major data aggregators which then gets passed down to the major directories and make sure the info is consistent. The drawback is it can take up to 3 months.

• Bright Local

My favourite Local SEO tool – Allows you to do an SEO audit, check you citations online, update them, and citation burst which costs about $3 per citation in a directory.

• https://www.whitespark.ca/local-citation-finder

Another great tool for Local SEO to search for local citations.

• http://localseochecklist.org/

Great starting place. Go through a checklist of what you need for a successful Local SEO.

• http://schema-creator.org/

Create schema markup for your content so that search engines can display more relevant results to your users.

• http://isearchfrom.com/

Want to know how you rank from a specific location?

Find That Email
Find That Email is a state of the art email finding tool. With features like domain search you can immediately find the email addresses of millions of professionals at the click of a button directly from the browser. Find that email aims to cut your prospecting time considerably.
Their free package includes 50 searches and 100 email verification credits. Don’t forget to try their Chrome extension to discover emails in social networks.

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Previous Articles:

0. Complete SEO Guide – Everything You need to know!
1. Complete SEO Guide – On-site SEO
2. Complete SEO Guide – Off-site SEO
3. Complete SEO Guide – Local SEO

References

• http://backlinko.com/high-quality-backlinks
• http://backlinko.com/white-hat-seo
• http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies
• http://searchengineland.com/google-emd-update-research-and-thoughts-137340
• http://www.seochat.com/c/a/google-optimization-help/geo-targeting-techniques-in-google-for-seo/
• http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/frequently-asked-question/how-can-i-do-a-301-redirect
• https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066?hl=en
• https://moz.com/blog/apache-redirect-an-index-file-to-your-domain-without-looping
• https://blog.kissmetrics.com/beginners-guide-to-google-webmaster-tools/
• https://moz.com/blog/absolute-beginners-guide-to-google-analytics
• http://backlinko.com/white-hat-seo
• http://backlinko.com/high-quality-backlinks

The End

Just starting the Complete SEO Guide? Start here!
Next: 4. Complete SEO Guide – Tools for SEO

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Note: If you are looking for a more comprehensive guide on Local SEO then check out our partner website BubbleLocal SEO.

Local Search Engine Optimization is very similar to normal SEO, in fact, you would do everything described in the SEO guide before going on to local SEO, both On-Site and Off-Site SEO. The difference with local SEO and normal SEO is that you are targeting local search results. For example, if you run a Web Design Agency in Bournemouth, the search results for a person searching for “Web Design” located in Bournemouth would be different from the results a person sees who is located in London, or outside the country. These are Local results, intended by Google to provide the searcher a business based locally for their search term. You can test this out with a tool at http://isearchfrom.com/ that allows you to perform Google search from different locations.

In this section we will break down the most important Local SEO indicators used by search engines, expected time-frame to attain local SERP ranking and how to gain a good local ranking.

How long does it take to rank in Local Search?

This is the question often asked by clients, and it’s a difficult question to answer as we have no control over what search engines do, but we can at best estimate. There are a few factors that could affect this estimate.

Age of Website

A brand new business with a brand new website has to start from scratch and it takes 6-10 weeks alone just for Google to index a brand new site, so it will take a little longer. The positive is that it would not have negative SEO attached to it or have been penalised by Google. Typically if it’s a brand new website in a fairly competitive industry, you can be looking at 9-12 months to get the desired results, which is usually Page 1 ranking for the main keywords.

Competitiveness of the industry/keywords

Competiveness of the keywords also matter a lot, as an example, a brand new website in an easy industry could take 3-6 months to get good local rankings instead of 9-12 months.

Existing Website

Existing Websites are easier to perform SEO on, you don’t have to wait for Google to index the pages but you do have some work to do depending on the quality of the SEO done so far. If it has been a poor SEO job or even worse, penalisation from Google, it could take over a year to fix everything. If it’s fairly average SEO work then results can be seen within 3 months for a website in an easy industry and 6 months for a more competitive industry.

How to rank Locally?

There are 4 main factors for ranking locally, in addition to normal SEO requirements (onsite optimised and offsite SEO). These are local citations by way of directory listings, inbound links, on-site optimisation and Reviews and Ratings. Local SEO results are largely based on online reputation of the business against their local competition and these 3 factors help increase that reputation.

Directory Listings (Local Citations)

Quite simply, the more local citations you have, the more credible your business appears to Google and search engines. Aim for about 50 local citations in directories within your country. Search engines look for NAP + W information. This stands for Name, Address, Phone Number and Website Address. There is also category which helps Google determine your competition. Make sure that the information is consistent, inconsistent information can cause your business to lose credibility and consistency could be as simple as “Manley Road” vs “Manley Rd.”, make sure whichever you go with, its consistent.

Below are 30 of my favourite directories for local citations in the UK. If you are looking for built-for-you local citations, you should check our Marketers Center.

(Note that Google, Yahoo and Bing Local are a MUST and not optional)

Reviews and Ratings

Reviews are very important not just from an SEO perspective, but also for brand and business reputation. Google Plus displays your ratings and review, so does Yell and many others, and this can influence users whether they decide to visit your website or not.

The importance of reviews and ratings to search engine rankings is still up for debate, however it will definitely affect that click-through-ratio of your site in the search results which is an SEO factor.

Inbound Links

Just as in normal SEO work, the quality and quantity of sites linking to your site is a big factor for determining your SERP ranking. We covered some backlink tactics in the Off-Site SEO section and they remain largely the same. The main difference being that with local SEO, you can leverage links from local businesses such as targeting local colleges, establishments for partnerships, offer discounts to get links.

Website Optimised

The requirements for on-site optimisation for local SEO remains the same. Some additional requirements such as a schema structure for business address helps, you can create one here http://schema-creator.org/. Ensure good quality content, keywords targeted in title, heading and content, images optimised, website loads fast and geo-targeting set correctly in Google Webmaster Tools. I also find it’s important to have the same ccTLD as your location if targeting local customers, as all things being equal, the ccTLD will have more success for local rankings.

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