SEO St Albans:

Our SEO Company in St Albans Can Help You Grow Your Online Business.

Are you a local business owner or webmaster that’s looking for more online organic traffic in St Albans and the surrounding areas? If yes, you’re in the right place! At 50 Creative Solutions, we are a digital marketing agency in St Albans providing bespoke SEO solutions for business or website to help you rank higher in the search engines and gain more organic traffic from search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. This article dives into what SEO is, the different aspects of SEO, how it works, what our SEO services in St Albans are, and why it’s important for your business now more than ever to have an SEO strategy in 2022.

What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

The way we like to explain SEO is by comparing your website to a book in the local Hertfordshire library, and Google is the librarian. Imagine that you are an author trying to hit it big on The Sunday Times Bestseller list. SEO is like the process of structuring your book so it’s appealing to the eye, easy to find, full of valuable information that is properly sourced and answers a question(s) that people are asking (all the bestseller criteria). When your new book hits the shelves, your perfectly structured piece of literature is ready for the librarian to easily find, read and suggest to her visitors when they ask her the questions that she knows only your book answers best. Now we’re going to switch that into SEO marketer jargon…

“SEO in St Albans is the process of structuring your website so it’s appealing to the eye, easy to find and use, full of valuable information that is properly sourced, and answers a question(s) that people are asking. When your website (or page) goes live, your valuable structured information is ready for Google to easily find, crawl and rank it when visitors enter keywords that Google knows only your website answers best.”

Pretty simple, right? Not so much…

Not every book can be a bestseller, even if it has great content and provides more value than its successful counterparts. The winning books are specifically designed to hit that top spot long before they are released to the public. Then even after the book is published, there are dedicated campaigns promoting how wonderful it is and all the solutions the author has provided to their readers. The same goes for a website! A high-ranking website has been fine-tuned from the start to rank well and there is work that continues after the site has been published to continue promoting the website’s solutions to the author’s target audience.

Accomplishing all these tasks takes a team of specialists that are incredibly good at what they do (that’s why their books are bestsellers). Unfortunately, most authors don’t have the skillset to accomplish the same results that a dedicated team of specialists can. For business owners like yourself who are looking to be found organically on search engines, our SEO company St Albans team can provide you with those solutions. We provide a complete ‘done-for-you’ service just like the support teams do for bestselling authors. We audit, optimise and organically promote your website, so it’s better positioned to hit that top spot and get you the traffic you’re looking for. We do this by following a very specific method that is bespoke to each of our clients. This happens in 2-parts. First with on-page SEO, then off-page SEO.

Did you know about Local SEO?

46% of searches are for local services and goods
76% of local searchers visit the location in 24 hours
56% of people shop locally online and offline
28% of local searches end in a purchase

SEO St Albans: Our On-Page SEO Process:

Imagine you’re walking through a library trying to find information about the current events in St Albans and you find a book that you think will answer the question (We know that nobody looks for current events in a library… Just bear with us for a second because it’s a great example!). The cover of the book you find is titled “Events”. It’s old, torn apart and reads like it was written by a Victorian chimney sweep. You can tell at first glance that this book hasn’t been taken care of, and it’s structured like the author had no real purpose of what they were trying to achieve. Would you use that book as a source of information for current events?

Probably not!

That book could even have the most up-to-date information on everything happening in St Albans and still, most people would pass it by. Why?

Because user experience matters!

This is why on-site work is so important. On-page SEO is key in ranking a website and one of the fastest ways you can see a boost in rankings. By creating a site that’s worth reading, easy to navigate, and engaging with the reader. You will rank better and bring in more targeted traffic that can help you increase sales, boost conversions, and improve your marketing ROI.

Our team helps you do this by covering 3 main aspects of on-page SEO: technical SEO, site performance & maintenance, and (most importantly) content.

Technical SEO

To completely understand technical SEO, we first need to understand how a site is structured. Again, we like comparing it to a book in a library. Each part of the book (website) has a function and it’s our job to make sure they are functioning right. A few of the technical SEO aspects that we focus on when optimising a website are URL structure, metadata (or hidden data), and page/site link structure.

URL Structure:

URL structure is incredibly important, but very few people keep this in mind when creating their web pages. The URL is like Google’s Dewey Decimal system, helping the librarian find your content in an endless sea of information. URLs need to be clear, concise and to the point; defining the purpose of the page and ideally using the target keyword(s). They should be free of symbols and filler words including ‘in’ or ‘and’.

Let’s compare 2 local plumbers and their URL structures, then YOU decide who would rank better for the search term ‘plumber st albans’.

GK Plumbers

gkplumbing.net/areas-we-cover/plumbers-st-albans

Nonpareil Solutions

nonpareilsolutions.co.uk/pages/plumbing

Both sites are in the top 10 pages of Google but only GK Plumbers is holding a top position on page 1 with the help of a simple and defining URL structure.

We know that they are plumbers who cover the St Albans area even before we see the page. For Nonpareil, we know from the URL that plumbing is a page on their website, but it doesn’t mention the areas they serve. In fact, St Albans is only mentioned once on the whole page. It’s more difficult for Google to use that information as a reference when ranking the site, making GK Plumbers’ St Albans SEO the clear winner.

Metadata

The metadata on a website is the information displayed by Google in their search engine result pages (SERPs). It’s information that the user cannot typically see while on the site, but Google and other search engines use this info to help define what the purpose of the page is and what information it is providing to the user. The 3 of the areas we put a heavy focus on are the meta title, meta description and the alt image tags.

It’s easy to understand why meta titles and descriptions are important, they are the content you read while browsing through the listings on the SERPs. If that content doesn’t describe what’s happening on the page, then Google is less likely to show your website’s pages as a viable source of information.

Let’s compare 2 local plumbers and their URL structures, then YOU decide who would rank better for the search term ‘plumber st albans’.

Digging a bit deeper, alt image text is a bit more complicated. Comparing it back to books, the alt image text on your website is a description of the image that’s being displayed, as the source text at the bottom of a picture in a book. Google doesn’t process images as we do, it processes data, and that data can’t be retrieved just by looking at the image itself. Google needs a description of what is on that image so it can crawl and index the content appropriately. This is where your metadata comes into play. The alt image text is what Google reads to understand what’s happening in the image.

Can't Hit Page 1?

Page, Site & Link Structure

Imagine your readers open your book to see that the table of contents is out of order, multiple chapters have the same titles, some chapters are missing, and the content isn’t in the correct place. Would they still read it? It’s not likely. Neither will Google because structuring a website is no different. It’s key for a website to be well structured and designed for users to easily read and navigate. This is done through a series of ‘tags’ within the metadata and site-wide link structures that define content and page hierarchy to the Google crawlers.

To help arrange content, we use metadata called ‘header tags’. These are the headings that organize the content including text and images on each page. Referring back to our book structure, an H1 tag is the title of the chapter (containing your target keyword), H2 is the subtitle, H3 is a section within the chapter and H4 is a sub-section of H3.

Then everything in the middle is content or ‘paragraph’ text. Taking it back to our book reference, your metadata would fit sort of like this:

Take a look at two examples below of local St Albans SEO work. Which do you think is ranking better for the search term ‘interior designer St Albans’?

Claire Garner

Tracey Andrews

This might be tricky for you to guess, but for an ‘SEO-er’ it’s pretty clear.

Claire Garner has a header at the top of the page with the key phrase ‘interior design St Albans’ and it is tagged as an H1. On the other hand, Tracy Andrews doesn’t even have an H1 tag on her site. They are all H3 (subheadings) and the keyword doesn’t appear on the top of the page. Based on their rankings, we’re confident that Claire is bringing in more organic traffic to her site than her competitors. Great job Claire!

Next, we need to look at your link structure. This is the focus on how all your web pages are connected, the order in which pages are viewed (user flow/experience), how the pages are linked to other sites (external links), and how each page can refer the user to other valuable content on the site (internal links). Don’t forget: User experience is a major ranking factor for Google. So, as a website owner, you can’t underestimate it. It’s pivotal to always keep the end-user in mind, and this part of the technical SEO process is how we ensure you’ve done that.

Site Performance Optimisation

Everyone at least once in their lives has clicked on a website that took (what felt like) a lifetime to load. If you want proper SEO in St Albans, then you need to take performance into account. It’s 2022, people don’t have the patience to wait for a page to load and they are incredibly likely to leave if they need to wait. That’s why site speed and performance are key in ranking. Google knows that your site needs to be in tip-top shape, and it will penalise you for running a slow show. So, how do we do it? By fixing the essentials like optimising your images, cutting back unused code, and making sure you’re getting the most from your server/hosting service.

Image Optimisation

Let’s go back to our St Albans clock tower image. Imagine you uploaded this straight to your website from your new iPhone 13 Pro. That image with all its data is stored on your website’s server that must be pulled from that server EVERY TIME a person is on that page. The higher the resolution and data the image has, the more time it takes to load on a page. Unless you have access to an expensive, high-quality server, you’re never going to have the speed you need to keep up with the competition, leading to higher bounce rates and poor rankings. Our team goes into your site and optimises every image held on the server, converting them into a high-resolution webp format so they’re quick to load and maintain their quality. In many cases, we can take websites from a 10-second load speed (slower than frozen molasses) down to less than 1 second (The Flash would be jealous).

Removing Unused/Excess Code

Our second step in performance optimisation is removing excess code that isn’t being used. Did you know, website templates are some of the most common ways that people will begin building a site? Most webmasters take what they want from previously built templates, build on top of them and then leave the rest hidden in the backend. Well, just like images, code is data, and it needs to be loaded each time someone accesses a webpage on your site. If your site has a large amount of excess code, it will inevitably slow your site down. Don’t believe us? Test your site speed on Google and look for yourself! Our team goes into every line of code to make sure that your site is running only on what is essential to keep it going and leaving all the unnecessary junk behind.

Auditing Your Server/Hosting Service

After we do all our optimisations on your site to ensure maximum performance and it still struggles to perform, we’ll investigate your hosting service/provider package. If you have a website, you’ve seen the ‘£3 a Month’ offers that look very appealing. That’s because, to a new site owner, they are! Who doesn’t want to have their site hosted for £36 a year? Well, much like everything in life, cheaper isn’t always better and the ugly head of cheap hosting is shown in poor site performance. If it comes to this point (which it sometimes does), our team will audit your current hosting service and make the ideal recommendations/updates for your site to perform at a #1 ranking speed.

Content

The last area of focus for on-page SEO is content. If you haven’t heard the saying before, you have now:

Content is King!

Not just the king of a country, king of the world! Real, valuable content is the single most important factor in ranking a website. So, all you need to do is jump on a computer and start typing up whatever comes to your mind in whatever jumbled mess it comes out as, right?

Not quite.

For example, take that book we were talking about earlier titled ‘Events’. Do you think the author would make it on the first page of Google? Probably not! Google isn’t going to rank outdated grammar and illegible content that doesn’t fit with the rest of the industry. There is so much more to it. Good content comes from a smart strategy, industry research and targeted keywords. Those bestselling authors make it big because they write about what’s relevant, and they follow a precise strategy when doing so. When done properly, the content could send a message, persuade readers to act, promote your beliefs, and even grow your bank account.

There is NOTHING more valuable than the content on your site because it’s YOURS. It’s UNIQUE to YOU and YOU are the only person on the planet who can provide the exact expertise that YOU do!

Our goal with content writing is to fit in your shoes and write about topics you care about. With this and all the SEO content fundamentals that we just don’t have space to mention, our team offers a complete overhaul of the content on your site to make sure it’s up to industry standards and accomplishes the goals that you set out to achieve. This includes strategy, adding the correct keywords, revising the grammar, adding additional content and much more. On top of fixing your old content, our team of copywriters will provide you with high-quality blogs and articles that will be published directly on your site. Providing your business with industry-specific content that can’t be found anywhere else.

SEO St Albans: Our Agency’s Off-Page SEO Process

After our team has completed all the on-page SEO on your site, you should be ranking right? Some of you might be! Unfortunately, those rankings don’t tend to stick and will dwindle under your competition if more action isn’t taken. Now more than ever you need to implement an off-page SEO strategy that tells the world all about your bestselling website!

Our team achieves results by creating and optimising a list of tasks including link building, Google my Business and pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. Let’s dive in to see what those look like.

Link Building

If you’re familiar with SEO, you’re probably familiar with the term link building. Essentially, link building is the process of connecting your website with other sites across the web. The purpose of link building is straightforward: get Google to trust you more by increasing your external references. Referring to our library analogy: Link building is like having your book’s content noted in the references/citations of another author’s book. The more references, the more the librarian trusts the information you’ve provided.

Again, this sounds simple… Until you connect to the wrong websites!

Google is all about natural and organic links, not links designed for a jump in rankings. The algorithm knows what these types of links are and where they come from, labelling them as a platform violation. If your links end up on sites like these, or if your site is caught creating backlinks for the sake of ranking, you could get penalised, and your rankings dropped. Unfortunately, most people don’t find this out until after the fact…

Alternatively, the way our team builds links is very different to what you find on your typical freelance websites. A vast majority of freelancers (and our competitors) will focus on linking your website to any sites they can find from anywhere in the world. It’s reckless and dangerous for your business. Our team focuses on only natural backlinks that we know you as a website owner would create. Through our discovery process, we learn about your industry, connect with the thought leaders, share your content, and build your network just like you would. Here are just a few of the links we create:

Citations

When determining whether a website should be ranked and, more importantly, in what region it should display the results, Google checks for the location and contact information of your business or organisation. Citations are key backlinks providing that information. By linking with sites like yell.com, bing.com and others, search engines can gather your company information from their crawlers and associate it directly with your business. Google places a high level of trust in these sites, so a citation on them is like a recommendation from a close friend.

A great example of citations is Mac Testing of St Albans on Yell.com. They have loads of great reviews, all their information right in one place, images, and a direct link to their website. We’d consider this as great St Albans SEO.

Guest Posts

Guest posts and shared articles are another great way we build backlinks. Our team curates content based on your niche/industry, sources websites relevant to your content and reaches out to the editors with a connection request. This could be a host of different sites including bloggers, thought leaders, influencers, friends or even (sometimes) potential competitors. Guest posts show Google that you’re connected with other providers in your specific industry and that you are a valuable content/information provider who is contributing to the online community. If you’re looking for safe and reliable SEO in St Albans, these guest posts are a great way to connect with others in your field, grow your online presence, increase rankings, and establish yourself as an industry leader.

Social Sharing

Can you name 3 or more people in your life who do not and never have engaged with at least 1 type of social media? Be it YouTube, Facebook, Instagram or any other social platform… We can’t! Over the last decade, our entire society has been shaped by social media and Google factors that in when ranking sites. They specifically place a high value on shared and featured content across social media because they can trust that the information is authentic. When creating articles and running campaigns, our team publishes those links and content on relevant social media platforms including Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. These provide you with safe, effective links that will help you grow your network, increase organic traffic, and increase your marketing ROI without any repercussions from the almighty Google Gods.

Google My Business

If you’ve ever Googled a company, then you more than likely have seen their Google My Business. This is the little box on the right side of the SERP with the company’s information. This is a feature that Google introduced in 2014 called Google my Business (GMB). This nifty tool is your one-stop-shop for providing all the relevant information that your target audience needs including a description of your organisation, physical location (or lack thereof), service areas, contact info, hours of operation, images, products for sale, reviews, and real-time updates. A GMB isn’t mandatory for ranking a page, but it sure helps. Data shows that a GMB is important for your local SEO rankings, and we optimise every aspect of it, so your St Albans digital storefront is in perfect working order for your next visitor.

Check out the Chamber of Commerce’ St Albans SEO by looking at their GMB:

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This GMB has:

Images
Map
Address
Directions
Opening Hours
Online Chat
Link to website
Phone
Reviews
Social Media Link

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Management

We know what you’re probably thinking, ‘This is about organic traffic, not paid traffic. What the heck?’ Well, believe it or not, a healthy PPC campaign with a small budget does help your website’s organic traffic! When traffic starts flowing into your site, whether organic or paid, Google takes that as a signal to help you rank better organically. This doesn’t mean you should dump a bunch of money into paid ads or create some extravagant ad campaign. Our team sets up a simple, inexpensive, and easy to monitor campaign based on the targeted keywords we found. This gives your site a little help with traffic, but a big reward in rankings.

SEO St Albans: Should you hire an agency?

So here is the end-all question…

Is hiring our SEO company in St Albans worth the investment?

We think the answer is yes!

(from a completely unbiased opinion 😁)

Here’s why:

Due to the pandemic, business was catapulted into the digital realm and it’s fundamentally changed the way we operate as a society. We were forced to go digital and there is little to nothing preventing us from going back. We will never get rid of the market on St Peter’s Street, or a Mr Whippy at the cathedral. But for the rest of us business owners, local and international business has forever shifted to an online world. By implementing SEO in St Albans and the local area, your business can:

Increase Organic Traffic
Grow Your Brand
Increase Sales
Boost Conversions
Grow your Network
Stay Ahead of Your Competitors
And much more…

If you’re interested in hiring an SEO company in St Albans to help grow your business, give us a call and we can help you find the perfect solution. Not in St Albans? No problem. We provide services all across the country including SEO in Luton and SEO in Cambridge.

Why pick 50 Creative Solutions?

We are your go-to SEO team in St Albans, specialising in SME's

Rocket Your Rankings

You are #1, you should rank like it.

Optimise Performance

From your website speed, to ranking performance. We optimise everything for the best SEO experience.

Target Your Audience

Don't just get traffic. Get organic, targeted traffic that converts.

Grow Your Business

Watch your profits increase and your value rise as you boost your rankings. It’s more profitable than you might think.

SEO St Albans:

What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?