“Rebranding” can feel like a scary word in the world of SEO or marketing, all the work put into creating trust around your current brand for it to suddenly change overnight.

The process of rebranding also requires a lot of work as there are many moving parts, and it is vital that everyone who has a hand in the campaign is kept in the loop throughout to ensure no information is lost and that the transition happens smoothly. 

A rebranding doesn’t have to be scary, you just need to be well-prepared and have the data to support you in any eventuality. So, if you’ve decided it’s time for a spring-clean then it might be good to figure out where to begin.

Types of Rebranding

A rebrand doesn’t always have to mean a change of brand name, although this is one aspect of it, rebranding could also mean changing the name of a product, or changing the theming or structure of your website.

Ensuring that a site rebranding runs as smoothly as possible and that the site as a whole is successfully adapted and rebranded without losing its SEO value is of utmost importance.

The site has built up organic visibility and equity over time which has resulted in obtaining rankings and visibility increases. It is important to protect this foundation throughout the rebranding process.

The main idea is to keep the old brand relevant as well as products/services whilst also bringing relevance to the new changes.

Lots of client reassurance, guidance and support is needed during this time, and it is good to share some best practice to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Goals of a Rebrand

The goal of any rebranding is to do so while also mitigating traffic and ranking losses and drops as much as possible; conducting a thorough SEO rebranding strategy ensures any major losses are prevented where possible. 

When you change your URLs, content, and the website overall, you change what search engines know about your website and the metrics they’ve applied to it to give you your rankings.

It is important to make changes slowly to allow the search landscape to adapt to your new changes.

Building a Good SEO Strategy Before Rebranding

When overseeing a website rebranding or change of any kind, it is important to develop a strategy that focuses on elements of SEO that we can begin monitoring to aid with the process.

Having a strategy in place will allow us to provide a framework for supporting the rebranding process.  

Not only this but it will help us to retain current keyword rankings as best as possible, prevent the occurrence of broken links across the site and ensure that content changes incorporate tracked keywords.

There are lots of types of rebranding changes that could be made, so the strategy should ultimately reflect your client’s needs.

Setting Appropriate Redirects

The most important step in a site rebranding process is to set up appropriate redirects across the site where changes have been made.

A 301 redirect will pass all current SEO equity from the original version of the site to the new version if implemented and managed correctly and lead to relevant target pages.

The complexity of the redirect set-up depends on how many changes are made to the overall structure of the site. 

As the rebranding is an opportunity to improve the overall site structure and user experience, the set-up of redirects can be a little more complex as redirects will likely have to be added on a per-page basis. Although time-consuming, this will prevent redirect errors from being made and also stop redirect chains and loops from being created.

A nice thing to do would be to set up a staging site for any content changes or new pages. This will enable you to make changes and implement redirects without officially publishing the content, allowing room for error and room for fixes or improvements too.

If you (or your client) are managing the rebrand internally, it is important to be aware of these points:

If there are pages that you do not intend to keep on the new site and there is no other page with similar or relevant content to redirect to, then it is best not to redirect at all, just no index them/410 them to tell Google the page has permanently gone.

There is often a temptation to redirect these types of pages to the site’s homepage, however, search engines often see this as spam, and it generally results in both pages being dropped from indexing.

Ensure that you have plans to optimise your new 404 page to reflect your rebranding and provide users with other pages to access.

What to do in Case of a Site Name Rebrand

If you’re dealing with the most typical rebranding scenario, then you may wish to change your brand name or URL.

If you move from ‘brand X’ to ‘brand Y’ people will still search for the old brand name.

You will likely require a migration to a new domain, which is accompanied by a new site design that reflects the rebranding.

In this scenario, it is important that you have exported all current site data for benchmarking at a later date once the new site is up and running. 

The first step would be to 301 redirect every page of the old domain to the new destination, if possible keep URL structures the same or similar as this will make redirecting simpler.

Creating a new page in the new domain that is about the old brand can serve as a bridge page to help target and rank for the old branded queries. This will also help to explain the reasons for the rebranding to your customers and help with the transition to the new brand name.

You could also add explanatory text to each page of the site for a short while if you feel it is necessary, through the form of a pop-up or banner.

Next, you should audit the URLs of the old site via Google Search Console or SEMrush/Ahrefs to see which of the old site pages are currently performing for branded terms. It is likely that these pages will need to be dealt with in a similar way to the homepage and can link to and from the bridge page on the new site too.

You should also ensure Google My Business information, and all other NAP (name, address, phone number) details across the web, including social media, are updated as this may impact local search.

Lastly, complete a thorough backlink audit so you can ensure all outreach links have been updated and correctly point to the new site.

What To Do in Case of a Product Rebranding

Despite not requiring a full domain migration and that it will only affect a number of pages across the site, product name rebrands often involve the most important pages on a site in terms of conversions, and therefore need full attention and support.

There are 3 ways this could go:

• The names overlap (i.e. Yellow ——>Yellow B)
• The name somewhat overlap (i.e. Yellow ——-> RED Yellow)
• The names are completely different (i.e. Yellow ——-> Blue)

When Product Names Overlap

If the product names overlap, then it may be possible to keep the old product URL and simply update the content to target the new product name.

If you have to have a new page entirely, you should move the old product URL to the new product URL via 301 redirect. 

It is also good to make sure you have updated any structured data/schema if it’s implemented, and most importantly, the page content. You could also use explanatory text via a banner or a pop-up on the new product page if you feel it is necessary.

When Product Names Somewhat Overlap

If the product names somewhat overlap, you can leverage the old product page to help to directly establish the new one more quickly.

Firstly, you should 301 redirect the old product page to the new one to maintain brand relevance. You may also choose to create a bridge page to target old brand queries if this is necessary, there is also the option to include explanatory text on the new product page in the form of a banner or a pop-up.

You can then link to the bridge page from the new product page and to the new product page from the bridge page. It is also vital to update any existing internal links and place in any new internal links that may be deemed necessary now the product name has changed.

When Product Names Are Completely Different

If the product names are completely different, you can still leverage the old product page to serve as a bridge page that will explain the rebrand, keep the brand relevance (and rankings) for old brand queries whilst also linking to the new product page. 

A new product page for the new brand should then be created to target new brand queries. This new page should be linked internally, and all links should be updated. It is also important to update your outreach links if necessary.

What To Do in The Case of a Site Restructure

Site restructures are tricky as although they aren’t technically a rebrand in essence, users will be landing on a different version of your site which can impact user experience and conversion funnels. It may impact click-through rate or site engagement if users don’t feel familiar with a site set-up.

There are lots of moving parts to a site restructure, and it takes a lot of time, care and attention to successfully implement and follow through with a full restructure to ensure the process runs smoothly.

URL Auditing

To enable you to identify what SEO value a site structure currently has and what is worth maintaining during the restructure, an audit of all current URLs will need to be conducted to look for high-value content, key backlinks, and to assess the site’s current ranking positions within SERPs. 

All current URLs need to be taken through this process, as it will also allow you to set up efficient redirects later on in the process. 

You can also use this opportunity to see which URLs have lower SEO value (i.e. pages that are no longer relevant to the site, and pages that have little high-value content on them) they can then be optimised to a greater extent during the rebranding process or redirected appropriately. 

Conducting a URL audit will also allow you to identify duplicated content across the site. It is important to highlight where these areas exist and decide how to best proceed in the context of the rebrand.

Identify High-Performing Pages and Keywords

Another important step is to identify which of the tracked keywords are bringing in the most traffic to the site, as well as the top performing pages for those keywords.

You should look at pages that are sitting within positions 1-20 (or 1-30 if the site is rebranding in its infancy) and use this as an opportunity to identify keywords that the client may want to target more heavily in the rebrand than on the current site.

Identifying the top-performing pages with the highest SEO value will ensure that we are preserving content that is useful to the site during the rebranding process. 

You should ensure that if structural updates are made to these pages, such as layout or sentence changes, the overall topics and high-volume keywords remain the same where possible.

Preserving content is also important to consider during the redirect process, especially when making alterations to the structure or layout of pages across the site. If you are combining pages, it is important to incorporate relevant keywords to each page.

While many SEO elements will transfer via redirects, keywords can only be maintained if they are appropriately incorporated throughout the rebranded content and metadata.

What Should I Do About Backlinks During a Rebrand?

Backlinks are just as important as internal links and content when it comes to rebranding, especially if the brand name has changed or a product name has changed. 

With the help of a backlink audit, you can track any changes that may occur during the rebranding process and make key changes and fixes if necessary. 

Once the rebranded site is published, you will then need to look over the backlink audit once more and complete some link update outreach. This involves contacting the companies, journalists and bloggers who have included a backlink to your site and asking them to change the old link to reflect any URL changes or updates that have occurred during the rebranding process.

Post Publication

Once the rebranding is completed and launched, it is vitally important to submit a new version of your sitemap.xml file to ensure that search engines are aware of the changes made to the site structure. 

After the launch date, closely monitor site analytics to ensure that everything is still running smoothly and as you want it to. Also, look out for any technical issues and implement immediate fixes if necessary to keep URLs updated.

It is expected to see some ranking and traffic drops during the period directly after the rebranding to allow Google to update its database. However, these changes will start to steadily improve again shortly after updates are made.

So there you have it, you’ve just survived a rebranding, and it doesn’t need to be as scary as it’s first made out to be! With a few simple steps to ensure a smooth and reliable process, you can achieve rebranding success.

Want to be sure you don’t miss anything during your migration? We have a FREE downloadable checklist, which you can find here. This checklist includes everything you need to do from an SEO perspective before, during and after a web migration. We’ve also included information on what each step involves and why.

Interested in outsourcing your migration? We offer assistance with the whole process as part of our SEO campaign package. Contact us today to speak to one of our experts about our award-winning SEO services.

The post How to Survive a Rebranding appeared first on The SEO Works.

We are extremely pleased to announce our two charity partners for the 2025/26 financial year.

The announcement comes as part of a new direction for Corporate Social Responsibility at the agency – we have decided to move away from supporting a variety of charities on an ad-hoc basis, to a more formalised ‘Charity Partnership’ agreement. This will allow for a more dedicated approach to helping the vital causes.

This year, we will be supporting two Sheffield-based charities – The Archer Project and Weston Park Cancer Charity.  This support will come in a variety of forms such as time, resources and fundraising, and will be planned in collaboration with the charities, to maximise its effectiveness.

The Archer Project

For over 30 years, The Archer Project has helped individuals to progress away from homelessness, and move towards living a more meaningful and fulfilled life. They offer individuals programmes across a number of areas including health and wellbeing, routine planning and transition support.

They also offer vital resources to homeless people in the area, including a ‘Breakfast club’ and access to certain healthcare.

Terry Murphy, Managing Director of Archer Project Enterprises, said,

“We’re absolutely delighted that The Archer Project has been selected by The SEO Works as one of their partner charities for the year. Our social enterprise team is especially looking forward to collaborating with their brilliant marketing professionals to grow our skills, build our brand, and ultimately strengthen the impact of Printed by Us.”

Tim, CEO of the Archer Project echoed his sentiment, saying,

“We are deeply grateful to The SEO Works for naming us one of their Charity Partners. We are looking forward to working together to highlight the urgent needs of those experiencing homelessness. Together, we are making a significant impact and bringing hope to many lives. Thank you!”

Weston Park Cancer Charity

Weston Park Cancer Charity, also based in Sheffield, is a leading cancer charity that offers advice, therapies and support to patients and their loved ones, helping everyone to live with and beyond cancer.

The funds they raise also support vital, pioneering research and clinical trials. The agency will focus on support for the wellbeing, support and welfare area of the charity. 

Emma Clarke, CEO of Weston Park Cancer Charity, said,

“I’m thrilled to announce our partnership with The SEO Works. Their support will be instrumental in helping us raise vital funds over the next year, helping us continue to enable research, provide support and enhance cancer treatment. The team at The SEO Works are full of creative ideas, we’re excited to see the impact we can make together.”

What the Partnerships Involve

This twelve-month charity partnership with both organisations hopes to make a difference to the fantastic causes they support.

Firstly, working with the charities directly and building an ongoing relationship will allow us to fully understand the imminent needs of each charity. Being able to dedicate a mixture of time, resources, expertise and fundraising as needs dictate and fluctuate throughout the year, will allow the partnership to be as effective as possible – giving exactly what the charities need, when they need it.

Each staff member here is granted one charity day per year, increasing to two after one year of employment. Our new partnerships with the charities will give staff the opportunity to utilise these days across a number of areas, whether it’s fundraising, a sponsored activity or being on the front line at The Archer Project or Weston Park Cancer Charity. With over 75 staff members at their disposal, this is a huge resource that charities can capitalised on. 

Our large team of expert digital marketers also allows us to provide access to key expertise and skills for the charities – helping them increase awareness of their crucial causes and expand their fundraising with the help of digital marketing approaches.

And finally, fundraising. We already undertake a variety of fundraising activities throughout the year with anything from bake sales to running the Sheffield 10k. Our Sales Director, Alex Hill, has also ran the London Marathon on behalf of Cavendish Cancer Care, the organisation which has now merged with Weston Park Cancer Charity.

With a corporate focus on honing these fundraising activities, the hope for us is that throughout 2025/26 is we can raise a significant amount of money to donate to them both, making a real impact. 

On the announcement, Alex Hill said,

“We have a culture of fundraising and charity support – it’s an important part of our events throughout the year. So, we thought it was about time we as a company levelled-up our charity approach, and to kick this off we’ve chosen two charities close to our hearts.

“The Archer Project and Weston Park Cancer Charity are very important organisations within Sheffield, and the local work they do is extremely important. I’m excited to see how our partnerships will flourish throughout the coming year and how we can assist them in their mission.”

The post Our 2025 Charity Partners appeared first on The SEO Works.

When brands post ghost jobs for SEO gains, who you gonna call?

In March 2025, a high-profile industry newsletter went out to thousands of SEOs and digital marketers with what we think is a fairly controversial tip. It concerns branded search, something of a hot topic after a few insightful Google leaks pointed to its importance in the search rankings.

We won’t call out the newsletter because we’re not about naming and shaming (and it’s actually one of our favourite publications, usually). But it made a couple of rogue suggestions about how to level up your branded search traffic, namely, advertising fake or ‘ghost’ jobs in order to get jobseekers to Google you. Here’s the tip they sent out:

“Run job ads (even if you’re not actively hiring) to generate brand-name searches from jobseekers. Don’t include the link to your company website in the job ad – make candidates Google you!”

Shudder.

In this article, we’ll cover what ghost jobs actually are, why anyone would want to post one, and provide what we think are some less sinister ways to improve your branded search performance.

What is a Ghost Job?

We know that sometimes, companies will have an open call for CVs on their website, or keep an old vacancy open if the right applicant hasn’t been found, but this is something else altogether. 

Ghost jobs are adverts for jobs that literally don’t exist. The company aren’t hiring – and don’t plan to, but for any number of reasons decide to post a vacancy online. They’re usually found on job boards like LinkedIn Jobs or Indeed, lurking in the shadows.

Who is Posting Ghost Jobs? And Why?

A survey of 1,641 hiring managers last year revealed that a shocking 40% of companies admit to posting ghost jobs, with 13% of those companies posting 75 or more fake roles in the space of a year.

And if that makes your blood run cold, then you might want to be sitting down for this.

The Chilling Reasons Companies Post Fake Jobs:

• To create the illusion of growth
• To mislead employees into believing their workload will be alleviated
• To make employees feel replaceable (yikes)
• To collect resumes or data

According to the survey, those are the main reasons companies have historically posted ghost jobs. But jobseekers are now contending with a new shady school of thought; that there are SEO gains to be had from advertising ghost jobs.

The name of the game? Branded search.

What is Branded Search?

Branded search refers to when users are searching specifically for your brand name, product or service, or when their search queries include your brand.

“Royal Mail tracking”

“IKEA roman blinds”

“Papa Johns vs Dominos”

Branded search will signal strong credibility to search engines, and if the Google leaks are to be believed, it’s a ranking factor with some weight behind it.

Search engines know that there’s strong intent and trust behind a branded search, which go hand-in-hand with high clicks and low bounces.

In a nutshell, if users are searching for your keywords and your brand, it’s a ringing endorsement when search engines are deciding who to prioritise in the SERPs, and what to show in related searches.

“When many users are searching for a specific term, such as “3M chemical goggles,” instead of just “chemical goggles,” Google starts to show that particular term in its suggestions over time. If branded keyphrases become more popular, they move higher in the suggestions list.”

Greg Heilers, Moz

The Human Cost of ‘Gaming’ Branded Search

While we accept that ‘black hat SEO’ (unethical/manipulative SEO tactics) can get quick results that might impress clients initially, gaming the system is rarely future-proof.

Google will get wise to any loophole eventually, and a history of hacky, spammy practices is likely to do more harm than good to your brand. Reputation takes years to build, and seconds to destroy.

When it comes to ghost jobs, any shortsighted wins (if they even work) will have been at the expense of real people going through tough times. So there’s a significant human cost attached.

We spoke to Paul, a father of two and a content marketer with a decade of experience who’s been looking for a job for about five months.

“Real job applications and interviews are hard enough to get genuine responses and feedback from. To know some brands are willingly wasting applicants’ time, people who are often desperate to find work to provide for their families in a highly competitive job market, is frustrating but ultimately unsurprising.”

Hunting through poorly targeted job ads for hours on end, paying to access paywalled opportunities, jumping through endless hoops, and being rejected or ghosted by roles you’re overqualified for, all take a huge mental toll on beleaguered jobseekers. 

Meanwhile, household outgoings continue to soar to record levels. Just last week, the charity Citizens Advice said the finances of millions in the UK were “stretched beyond breaking point” even before April’s rise in energy and council tax bills.

It’s a jungle out there, and you only need to spend five minutes on the subreddit /r/UK Jobs to understand how cruel it can be. At the time of writing, these are some of the top posts of the day:

• ‘I’ve applied for over 1,500 IT jobs in the last 6 months in the UK with zero progress’’
• ‘A 3 day test for an entry-level social media role. I give up.’
• ‘Finally got a job after almost 3 years of active searching’
• ‘Today I applied for my 400th job in 2 years’
• ‘Got asked to do an AI interview…’

Hannah Ellis, Founder of Sheffield Young Professionals, spends a lot of time talking careers with the region’s most promising talent, and had this to say about ghost jobs:

“Applying for jobs is a time-consuming and mentally taxing task at the best of times. And if you’re out of work when applying for roles, the pressure is tenfold.”

“Spending time filling out applications and proceeding to hear nothing back can be soul destroying – these fake listings are exploiting people’s ambition and self-esteem purely for their own gain.”

We’re inclined to agree.

Posting ghost jobs is unethical, and unethical SEO practices have no place in your marketing strategy.

So, with the exorcism complete, let’s talk instead about what you should do.

5 Better Ways to Improve Branded Search Volume

Let’s explore some practical steps you can take to improve your branded search metrics that won’t leave exhausted job hunters crying into their cornflakes.

1) Say More, Help More, Give Stuff Away

You do stuff, so you probably know stuff. Just like writing these blog posts, not only is it something we enjoy doing at The SEO Works, but it’s something we’re good at, because we solve SEO challenges for our clients all day long. If you’ve got some experience, you can help people, and helpful content will drive interest and get people Googling you.

Take Moz for example, quoted earlier in this article. Moz made its name in the SEO space by creating and sharing a ton of high-quality educational content for free, engaging with their target audience.

When I first started out in SEO, I soaked up everything I could from the Moz Academy, and up until recently (when it became less free), I’d send folks to their site to learn more about SEO.

Google’s own guides recommend “creating helpful, reliable, people-first content” if you want to impress their automated ranking systems. To perform well in search, we should all be posting content that demonstrates “first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge”. It’s all right there in the user manual, people!

And what’s that old customer service adage, “serve before you sell”? 

You could write blogs, appear on industry podcasts, build cool little tools like Whitespark’s Freshness Calculator or our handy Title Generator, and give them away for free. Or put a bunch of useful resources up on your site like our webinars, whitepapers and helpsheets.

If you really have a lot to say, you could even write a book. Gil Gildner from Discosloth (a digital agency who publish marketing titles like The Beginner’s Guide to Google Ads) writes,

“Books that we wrote back in 2017 are still paying dividends. In the past couple of years, we have gotten to the point where we have so many brand searches & inbound inquiries that we essentially don’t have to do sales anymore.”

Lucky for you, Gil.

2) Engage Your Audience Where They Hang Out

You probably have a good idea who your target audience are, but we suggest creating some customer personas (using data to build profiles of your ideal customers) and start engaging with them in the spaces they spend time online and off. You could:

• Sponsor their favourite podcast or industry event
• Contribute thoughtfully to popular threads on social media
• Run ads on their favourite YouTube channels
• Run display ads on relevant online communities
• Be super active and helpful in their favourite subreddits
• Pull back the curtain with a practical, behind-the-scenes ‘how I did this’ type case study that helps them achieve a common goal

3) Leverage Digital PR

To encourage organic brand mentions, you can utilise Digital PR tactics by offering insights or data that authoritative publications will want to reference or quote.

Mikaila Storey heads up our Digital PR Team, and has this to say:

“The more visible your brand is, the more familiar people will become with it, searching for your company to get additional info or purchase products.”

Mikaila suggests having a few Digital PR tactics up your sleeve that can generate brand mentions to boost visibility:

• Sharing company news and case studies
• Providing expert commentary and insights on relevant topics 
• Creating and sharing data-led campaigns with unique data
• Reacting to trending relevant news stories with different angles

Increasing brand awareness and mentions can be tricky, especially in very niche or competitive industries, but trialling different approaches and tactics can pay off and help to increase branded searches.

4) Reviews: When Stars Align

Both as marketers and consumers, we all recognise the value and importance of customer reviews. These days, savvy shoppers will append ‘reddit’, ‘trustpilot’ or even ‘legit?’ to the end of a branded search before even entertaining the idea of engaging with you. This is all about credibility and trust.

Now, we’re not saying that having great online reviews is going to directly send you huge droves of branded search traffic, but there are less obvious ways that it can help.

Genuine product reviews often appear on sites like Yelp, G2, Capterra, Quora, and Reddit. When people see these reviews but want more info, they take to Googling you. I’ve personally taken screenshots of Reddit comments recommending a product, earmarking it to look up later.

Here’s one I found on my phone. I later Googled the brand and bought their earplugs after seeing several people vouch for them online.

This can be really powerful for smaller brands, where having a bit of a cult following amongst your core audience can help you compete with the big incumbents.

If your brand is well-reviewed, you also stand a better chance of being featured in rich results. This is a bit like an unofficial stamp of approval from Google, which could lead to people searching for your brand later on when they’re further down the funnel.

So whatever you can do to encourage your customers to review you online (and not just on the big review sites) will contribute to your branded search performance, as well as your conversions.

5) Post Real Jobs!

Here’s the big plot twist. We do think posting job vacancies increases branded search volume, and we do recommend you do it. When you’re actually hiring.

There’s no harm in posting your genuine job ads across multiple job boards and all over social media, in fact, it’s a good idea. You’re casting a wider net and, in theory, stand a better chance of reaching the right candidates.

Posting about a vacancy on social media means you can also attract passive candidates – those who aren’t actively looking for a new role, but might be open to one.

So there you have it – what not to do, and what to do instead. Take what you read in newsletters with a pinch of salt (and a healthy glug of integrity), and trust your gut. If it feels shady, it probably is.

To end on a quote (shoutout to GCSE English):

“Don’t be evil.” – Google, before adopting a more scalable approach to morality.

– Update: Since being interviewed for this article, Paul has landed a marketing role with a well-known travel brand. Nice one, Paul!

The post Ghost Jobs: The Dark Side of Branded Search appeared first on The SEO Works.

When it comes to driving your business forward, PPC is one of the most efficient and widely used routes in the digital marketing world. Just like getting into the driver’s seat of a car, setting up your PPC campaign requires preparation and the right mindset.

This guide outlines all the essential steps to help you gear up for the PPC journey and steer your business toward success.

The Open Road: What is PPC?

Imagine driving on a wide-open highway, the endless road stretching ahead of you.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is like a fast lane to your business goals. It’s an advertising model where you pay a fee to the host of the platform for each click on your ad. The cost you incur is determined by a bidding system.

Your bid enters an auction where it competes with other advertisers, and the platform factors in bid amount, ad quality, and relevance to decide which ads to display and what your cost-per-click (CPC) will be. 

Your ads can appear on search engine results pages (SERPs), social media platforms, YouTube and affiliate websites to name a few. Listed below are some platforms that you can run and manage your PPC campaigns on: 

• Google Ads: Advertise across Google’s search engine and network
• Bing Ads: Advertise on Bing and its partner websites
• Meta Ads: Reach users on Facebook, Instagram, and other Meta properties
• LinkedIn Ads: Reach an engaged audience of business professionals

This guide focuses on the process of creating a Search Ads campaign, specifically on platforms like Google Ads where keyword targeting is the core of the strategy.

Safety Checks: Account Setup

Before you start driving, you need to ensure your seatbelt is fastened, mirrors adjusted and all other safety checks have taken place. Similarly, in PPC, you need to ensure that all the required account settings are in place in order to avoid any potential issues as your campaigns progress.

• After the completion of the sign up process on your chosen platform, enter your business information. This includes aspects such as your business name and usually your website URL. (Other options include your business phone number and your app download page, depending on where you want to direct users who click on your ad). 

Roadside assistance: After providing your business details, the next step the platform provides you is with campaign creation. It is recommended that you skip this step at this stage and choose the ‘leave campaign creation’ option.

• You will then be directed to a page where you are required to confirm some crucial account settings such as the billing country, time zone and currency. (Please note: these settings cannot be edited once submitted.) 
• The next step is to input your payment information by setting up a payments profile. Once completed, this should result in a ‘Your account was created’ confirmation. 
• Google Ads will then encourage you to complete advertiser verification at this stage. It is highly recommended to do so to ensure a safe, transparent experience for both you and users, and to keep your ads running smoothly.
• You are now ready to commence the creation of your campaign structure, starting with establishing a campaign goal

Setting Your Destination: Define Your Campaign Goals

Defining your goals is like choosing your endpoint on the map. Google Ads provides you with several campaign objectives to assist with this. Outlined below are some of the most commonly used objectives: 

• Choose Sales: If you want to drive sales online, in app, by phone or in store. 
• Choose Leads: Get leads and other conversions by encouraging customers to take action.
• Choose Website Traffic: To get the right people to your website. 
• Choose Awareness and Consideration: Reach a broad audience and build interest in your products or brand.

Fuelling Up: Campaign Structure and Keyword Research

Now it’s time to fuel up and get moving! Campaign structure and keyword research are the gasoline that power your PPC campaign. This is where you decide the ‘route’ you’ll take and the ‘keywords’ that will get you there.

As a beginner, Google Ads’ built-in Keyword Planner is a quick and efficient tool for research. It enables you to find relevant keywords that align with your business needs and the interests of your target audience. 

The tool allows you to input a few initial keywords and your website URL which it uses to generate additional keywords suggestions and also provides average search volume and forecasts.

There are several other metrics which the tool provides data on such as the level of competition on each keyword and its estimated top of page bid. It is essential to take into account this additional information to ensure that the keywords included in your campaign are well informed, relevant and align with your budget. 

After finalising your keywords, the next step is to organise the keywords into campaigns and ad groups. 

• Campaigns: The highest level of your structure. Often relating to aspects such as product categories. For example: Skincare, Makeup etc.
• Ad Groups: Groups within a campaign that contain closely related keywords. Each ad group focuses on a specific product or theme. For example: Skincare can be broken down into Moisturisers, Cleansers, Sunscreen, Serums etc. 
• Keywords: Specific words or phrases related to your product or service that trigger your ads when searched. For example: The moisturiser’s ad group would contain keywords such as ‘buy moisturiser’, ‘moisturiser for dry skin’, ‘best face creams’ etc. 

Fuel for thought: While AI is a powerful tool for finding relevant traffic, it’s not perfect. As platforms increasingly continue to incorporate AI and broader keyword matching, the risk of irrelevant traffic has grown. Hence, the inclusion of negative keywords is more important than ever. 

Negative keywords assist in reducing wasted ad spend by filtering out irrelevant search queries and ensuring your ads reach the right users. Tools such as the ‘Search Terms’ report in Google Ads can be utilised to monitor incoming search queries and identify potential terms to be negated.

Hitting The Road: Creation Of Ads

With your route mapped out and fuel in your tank, it is time to hit the road and create those ads! Your ad copy is like the signs along the motorway – it needs to grab attention and guide users toward the destination.

A standard search ad in Google Ads requires the addition of headlines (maximum of 15) and descriptions (maximum of 5). Please note: this will vary depending on campaign and ad types. 

It is essential to include ad copy that is relevant to your keywords (ensuring the actual keywords are strategically included in the ad copy), highlights your business’s unique selling propositions and includes strong calls to actions such as ‘Shop Now’ or ‘Get a Free Quote Today’. 

The ‘ad strength’ metric displayed during the creation of the ads can also be used to assess the quality of your ads.  A higher ad strength indicates increased ad relevance which helps the search engine accurately match user’s search queries due to your ad placements being higher. 

Steering you right: While Google typically mixes and matches headlines and descriptions for each ad, you can pin specific ones to ensure that a particular headline or description is always displayed in your ads. However, the recommendation is to not pin any copy because this will reduce ad strength as it limits the platform’s ability to optimise and test different copy combinations.

Speed Limits: Bidding Strategies and Budget Management

As you drive, you need to keep an eye on the speed limits and fuel gauge. In PPC, your bidding strategy controls how competitive your ads are in the auction and how much you are willing to pay for each click. 

After assigning a budget to each campaign, the next step is to determine your bidding approach and select the most suitable bidding strategy for your goal. Google allows you to take either a manual bidding approach or an automated one. However, advertising platforms are continuing to enhance the capabilities of automated bidding and phasing out the need for manual bidding. 

Automated bidding strategies leverage machine learning to adjust bids based on real-time factors and make data-driven optimisations. When used correctly, these can often lead to higher conversion rates and improved ROI. Additionally, the absence of the need to manually adjust bids is time saving and highly efficient. 

Turbocharged Tip: Despite the increased adoption of automated bidding, if you are running a small campaign with limited budgets or offer a niche product/service it might still be best to use manual bidding. The complete control allows you to optimise bids for specific keywords that are crucial to your campaign.

Roadside Pitstops: Ongoing Monitoring of Campaigns

Every road trip needs a few pit stops for rest and adjustments. In the same way, you’ll need to optimise your PPC campaign along the journey. PPC isn’t a “set it and forget it” kind of deal. It is all about constantly reviewing your performance and making enhancements. 

Outlined below are key metrics to monitor: 

Click-through Rate (CTR): Helps to measure the effectiveness of your ads, by understanding what percentage of users that see your ad actually click on it. 

Conversion rate (CVR): Provides you with an insight into the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action after seeing your ad. 

Average cost per click (CPC): Monitoring the average amount you pay for a click on your ad is essential for cost control and maximising return on investment. 

Cost per acquisition (CPA): The cost you pay for each acquisition (conversion) is a crucial metric to monitor in order to ensure that your campaigns are profitable. 

Search impression share: An indication of how often your ads are appearing compared to the total possible impressions for your targeted keywords. This is also a highly valuable metric to track competitor activity. 

Mechanic’s Secret: Test and learn! Regularly conducting A/B testing of ad copy, landing pages and bidding strategies whilst using the metrics above as key performance indicators is crucial to establishing what will provide your campaigns with the highest chance of success.

Reaching Your Destination: Summary

Congratulations! You have made it to your destination – your PPC campaign is up and running successfully. Just like any great road trip, PPC requires careful planning, adjustments along the way, and a bit of patience. But by following the steps outlined in this guide, you will be on your way to driving traffic, generating leads, and making sales.

So, are you ready to hit the gas and start your journey? Contact us today to speak to a member of our team about the award-winning PPC services we can offer your business.

The post Rev Up Your Campaigns – A Beginner’s Guide to PPC appeared first on The SEO Works.

You’ve done the hard part: you’ve poured your heart and soul into creating a stunning website that aligns with your core offerings and values. The UX is fully functional, the content is high-quality, and you’ve spent countless hours perfecting every little detail.

But how do you ensure that this content gets seen by organic users? To not let your hard work go unnoticed, the key is to create a website that is optimised for crawlability and indexability. 

Here, we’ll break down exactly what crawlability and indexability mean, why they’re crucial for your SEO success, and how you can make sure your pages are getting the spotlight they deserve on Google.

What is Crawlability?

In short, crawlability refers to how easy it is for search engine bots, such as Googlebot, to access and navigate the pages of your website. These bots, often called ‘spiders’, follow links on your site to discover and analyse its content. 

These fetch information from billions of web pages, and it achieves this by discovering new URLs either through internal links or via your submitted sitemap. If your site is crawlable, it means these bots can explore your pages and understand their structure in an efficient manner.

Without the ability for your site to be crawled, search engines do not have access to the information they need to evaluate your site and its content. Consequently, it has no reason to rank your site on its search results pages.  

This means that ensuring your site is crawlable is vital for your chances of gaining visibility in search.

However, having a fully functional site is only part of the equation. In order to ensure that all of your valuable pages are crawled (not just some), you need to make sure any potential barriers to crawlability, like broken links, blocked resources and poor site architecture, are removed. 

While often confused, crawlability is a separate concept from indexability. 

What is Indexability?

Indexability is the process that allows a search engine to analyse, process, and store a webpage in its database. This allows the page to appear in the search results.

Once a page is crawled by search engine bots, it must meet certain criteria to be indexed and made available to users searching for relevant terms.

Having an indexable site means search engines can not only access your content but also include it in their search index, making it visible to potential visitors. 

However, like with crawlability, there are some potential blockers to indexability to watch out for. For instance, in most cases, if pages are blocked by settings like ‘noindex’ meta tags or HTTP headers, Google will not index it, even if it was crawled. Therefore, ensuring your pages are indexable is just as crucial as making them crawlable.

5 Common Crawling and Indexability Issues (& How to Fix Them)

Various issues can hinder search engines from fully accessing and ranking your content. With this in mind, here are five commonly found crawling and indexability problems and how to fix them.

1) Thin content

Issue:

Search engines may not rank pages with very little original, or ‘thin’, content. This may include pages with just a few sentences, or pages that primarily consist of product descriptions copied from manufacturers.

Solution:

Boost your content with original research, expert opinions, or high-quality images and videos. This will not only help to increase engagement rate, but it will also make the content appear more authoritative. 

There’s also a chance that you may have a number of pages that focus on a similar topic. If you have multiple thin pages that have some overlap, consider consolidating them into a more comprehensive one.

Also, ensure that thin pages offer a valuable user experience even if they don’t have a lot of text.

2) Mobile-first indexing

Issue:

Google primarily uses the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking. If your mobile site has speed or usability issues, it can negatively impact your search rankings.

Solution:

Ensure your website uses responsive design to adapt seamlessly to different screen sizes. In particular, make an attempt to boost mobile speed by minimising page load times, optimising images, reducing HTTP requests, and enabling browser caching.

3) Duplicate content

Issue:

In a similar vein, search engines may view your content unfavourably if they find significant amounts of duplicate content. This could be either on your own site or another site found elsewhere on the web. 

If it’s between two pages on your own site, this can confuse search engines about which version of the page is the original and authoritative one.

Solution:

There are numerous potential solutions to removing duplicated content. Depending on your situation, you may want to employ:

• Canonical tags: Use the rel=”canonical” tag to specify the preferred URL for a page if it has multiple versions. This may involve different URLs for mobile and desktop.

• URL parameters: If you use URL parameters for tracking or filtering out source traffic, use differentiated versions to avoid duplication. 

• Content consolidation: If you have very similar content on different pages, consider consolidating it into a single page.

• Noindex directives: Use the ‘noindex’ meta tag or robots.txt directive to prevent search engines from indexing pages with duplicate content.

4) Crawl errors

Issue:

For a variety of reasons, search engine bots may encounter problems while trying to access and crawl your website. This could be due to server errors, such as 404 Not Found or 500 Internal Server Error, but also incorrect robots.txt directives, or slow server response times.

Solution:

To diagnose and address crawl errors on your site, you can use tools like Google Search Console and website crawlers like Sitebulb or Screaming Frog:

• Google Search Console provides valuable insights into crawl errors, such as specific URLs affected, indexing issues, and coverage reports. It also offers tailored advice on how to resolve these issues.

• Website crawlers like Sitebulb or Screaming Frog enable real-time troubleshooting by discovering and fixing broken links and missing resources, and analysing your robots.txt file to ensure it isn’t unintentionally blocking important pages.

You can also review your server logs to identify and fix broken links. 

Meanwhile, to further reduce the risk of crawl errors, you should explore improving server response times by optimising large resources, using a content delivery network (CDN), and minimising HTTP requests.

5) JavaScript rendering issues

Issue:

Search engines like Google can render and understand JavaScript, but this happens as a secondary step in the indexing process. For JavaScript-heavy websites, especially large ones, challenges can arise if JavaScript is slow to load or inefficient. 

In such cases, Google may run out of crawl budget and prevent the search engine from fully rendering and indexing dynamically loaded content.

Solution:

If your site relies heavily on JavaScript, you can tackle rendering issues in some of the following ways: 

• Server-Side Rendering (SSR): Render JavaScript content on the server and provide a fully rendered HTML version to search engines.

• Use a JavaScript rendering service: Services like Prerender.io can help search engines render Javascript content and index dynamic content.

• Improve JavaScript performance: Optimise your JavaScript code to ensure it loads quickly and efficiently.

How to Know if Your Site has Been Crawled and Indexed

So you’ve taken all the necessary steps to make your website crawlable and indexable. But how can you know definitively if your pages are being crawled and indexed?

One of the best ways to do this is by using Google Search Console. By logging into Search Console and accessing the URL Inspection Tool, you can quickly check if Google has crawled specific pages on your site and when it last did so. 

This tool provides valuable insights into whether your pages are indexed and up-to-date with Google’s crawling activity. It also allows you to check when your XML sitemap was last read. 

It’s also important to remember that sometimes pages are either ‘discovered but not yet crawled’, as shown in the ‘Discovered – currently not indexed’ section of Google Search Console. This means Google is aware of your page but hasn’t had the chance to crawl it yet.

This could happen if Google considers the page non-critical or if there are crawl budget issues, often due to the page being similar to other low-value pages or lacking strong signals like internal links. In such cases, you can request indexing to help ensure the page gets crawled and indexed.

Likewise, the ‘Crawled – Currently Not Indexed’ status indicates that Googlebot has visited the page, but it hasn’t yet been added to the search index, possibly due to the various factors mentioned above.

Alternatively, you can also analyse your website’s log files. These files capture every request made to your site, including those from Googlebot. By reviewing the logs, you can find specific timestamps of when Googlebot last visited your site. 

Bear in mind, though, that this process requires access to your website’s logs and might need the help of a hosting provider or technical team. 

Another quick method to check if your site has been crawled is by using the ‘site:’ command in Google’s search bar. Simply type “site:yourwebsite.com,” and if Google returns a list of indexed pages from your site, it means Google has crawled and indexed your content.

Although this method doesn’t show the exact date or time of the crawl, it’s an easy way to confirm that Google has at least discovered your pages.

An example of a ‘site’ command in Google’s search bar:

The amount of results seen under the ‘Tools’ dropdown should reflect the amount of pages on your site that you expect to be indexed:

Together, these methods give you a good understanding of whether your site is being crawled by Google and how often.

Crawlability and Indexability in SEO: The Verdict

It almost goes without saying that crawlability and indexability are the foundation of any successful SEO strategy. Naturally, if search engines can’t discover, access, and index your content, your website’s visibility in search results will be significantly limited. 

By addressing common issues like duplicate content, JavaScript rendering, and crawl errors, and by consistently monitoring your site’s performance using tools like Google Search Console, you can pave the way for better rankings and more organic traffic.

Ready to take your website’s performance to the next level? Get in touch with our expert team at SEO Works to see how we can help!

FAQs

How often does Google crawl websites?

The frequency depends on factors like the site’s authority, update frequency, and overall quality. High-authority or frequently updated sites are crawled more often.

What is a crawl budget, and does it matter for small websites?

A crawl budget refers to the number of pages Googlebot crawls on your site within a specific timeframe. While it’s more critical for large sites with thousands of pages, smaller sites can still benefit by ensuring their most important pages are easily crawlable.

Does crawl budget matter for large sites, and how can it be managed?

For large websites with extensive content, crawl budget is important as Googlebot may not crawl every page if the site is too large or has limited resources. To manage crawl budget effectively, you can use robots.txt to block non-essential pages from being crawled. By doing this, you’ll be directing Googlebot to focus on the most important content. 

Ensuring your site has fast load speeds and bolstering horizontal and vertical internal links to key pages will also help to maximise the crawl budget.

Can internal linking improve crawlability?

Yes, a well-structured internal linking strategy is crucial for helping search engine bots navigate your site efficiently. It ensures they can discover deeper pages that might not be linked externally. 

Additionally, XML sitemaps play an important role in guiding search engines to important content on your site by providing a clear list of all URLs that should be crawled and indexed.

The post What is Crawlability and Indexability in SEO? How to Get Your Pages Seen appeared first on The SEO Works.

Digital PR is more popular than ever, which means those in the industry are trying to come up with unique and newsworthy ideas in a range of niches, making it harder to stand out.

However, due to Digital PR being so saturated, it’s more important than ever to offer journalists relevant, topical, and original content. This blog aims to provide tips on where to find idea inspiration, what to consider when coming up with new ideas, and how to refresh existing campaigns – all of which will help to spark inspiration!

8 Ways to Find Idea Inspiration

It can be difficult to know where to start when producing ideas, and it’s even harder for niche clients who may not necessarily have the most newsworthy product or service! Luckily, there are a range of sources that can help inspire ideas.

1) AI Tools

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has its disadvantages, as it isn’t capable of the same creativity as humans, but it can be great for getting idea inspiration. For example, you could ask AI tools, such as Chat GPT, to provide some potential angles for blogs on a particular topic or for more general marketing campaign ideas.

While the initial results may not be as relevant, you can try a range of prompts to get closer to what you want. A lot of the time, though, AI just provides a useful starting point when your mind has gone blank!

Another tool, idiot.online, was recently created and works similarly to tools such as Chat GPT, but it specifically comes up with Digital PR ideas, making the ideas much more relevant.

It’s also a lot simpler to use and takes minimal effort – you simply enter the website domain, and it will pull out a range of relevant Digital PR campaign idea titles based on the site’s main topics, with the ideas including UK tabloid media content, how-to articles and UK regional media articles.

As with many AI tools, the results are sometimes inconsistent. While both of these tools can provide some great starting points for ideas, they may also provide ideas that aren’t relevant or useable – it may take a few prompts. It’s also worth researching the topic suggestions from AI tools for accuracy.

2) Repurposing Ideas

A lot of Digital PR campaigns, and news stories in general, are based on existing stories and have been updated with something new and original. It’s perfectly okay to take inspiration from competitors and existing campaigns, but it’s important to change it up by adding something unique.

Otherwise, it likely won’t get picked up and copying work directly could give you a bad reputation, putting journalists off sharing any of your future campaigns. A new element to add could include internal data, updating statistics or adding expert comments, for example. 

Looking at what topics and types of content have previously worked for competitors is a great way to figure out what might get results for your clients and help you tailor your strategy accordingly. You can even use Google News to search for stories that have surfaced in the media in the previous year. Even your own campaigns can be repurposed – if you pitched a campaign and it was successful, don’t be afraid to update and repitch it!

3) Keywords

It can be difficult to tie relevant keywords to Digital PR campaigns, especially if it’s within a niche industry. However, keywords can certainly spark inspiration for ideas, as well as support a client’s SEO.

Starting with the keywords you want to rank for can help generate relevant and engaging content. Analysing keyword trends can also uncover popular topics and any industry pain points to explore, leading to relevant and topical campaign themes that can help position clients as thought leaders.

Incorporating keywords into Digital PR content ensures campaigns align with search intent, which in turn can drive traffic and increase visibility.

4) News and Events

Another great starting point for generating campaign ideas is to look at what is going on in the news or your client’s industry – this is key for a campaign to be relevant and topical.

A simple Google search of your client’s product, service or other relevant keywords can easily show you what’s currently being talked about in their industry which can spark inspiration for reactive campaigns.

As well as news stories and events, relevant awareness days and events can be a goldmine for idea inspiration. With there being so many days, weeks or even months dedicated to certain topics, there’s almost bound to be one relevant to your business!

Of course, not all awareness days are relevant or should be used for campaigns – any sensitive awareness days are best to avoid unless your business can contribute something valuable to the conversation.

Ensure to be considerate when producing campaigns off the back of awareness days and certain events depending on the topic and cause. However, many awareness days were created for marketing purposes, like Blue Monday, making it easier to get involved with lighthearted campaigns. 

Tying an idea to an awareness day can make it more topical, as they are often talked about in the news and online. For example, if you have a client or a business that offers pet-related products or services, National Pet Month would be an ideal awareness day to produce a relevant idea or repitch existing content.

We have also put together a calendar of Pop Culture events that you might find useful.

5) Social Media

Social media can be a great source of inspiration for a wide range of creative tasks, including Digital PR campaign ideas. A great starting point is to look at social media platforms for any trends relevant to your client.

Pinterest Trends showcases the topics trending on Pinterest with high search volumes and allows you to search by keywords, too. For example, at the time of writing, ‘spring outfits’ were trending on Pinterest, which could be a starting focus for an online fashion retailer.

X also has a trending section where you can see what people are talking about on the platform, which can inspire a reactive campaign idea. Additionally, Instagram and TikTok trends provide a visual representation of what audiences are engaging with.

Popular hashtags, used across most social media platforms, can also provide insight into what is currently popular on social media. There are also trend analysis tools which analyse historical data to identify any patterns and trends over time, such as Buzzsumo and Exploding Topics.

6) Data Sets

A wide range of datasets are available that can enormously help and inspire a digital PR campaign. For example, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) might release a house price index, and the data itself may show a change since the last statistics, which alone could be a story.

Tying this update to a relevant client and adding expert comments can make it stand out from others reporting on this news.

Some popular data sets include:

• ONS
• YouGov
• Freedom of Information (FOI) requests
• Netflix data
• Google Trends
• Census data
• Social media analytics

Niche databases that are more relevant for specific industries shouldn’t be overlooked! These databases include Crunchbase for business insights, Spotify data for music trends, and IMDB for entertainment data. Showcasing data in a visual or interactive way, such as infographics or interactive maps can also add extra impact.

7) Editorial Calendars

Some publications will share their editorial calendars, which often outline themes, topics, and special features they’ll cover. Looking at these content plans can spark inspiration for new ideas and be a great way to see if any of your previous or planned campaigns could fit with their upcoming stories.

Editorial calendars can also help identify relevant themes you could tie into your campaign and increase the chances of coverage.

For example, if a publication had a feature coming up on ‘sustainable business solutions’ and your client related to this, you could create a campaign focusing on ‘Sustainable Business Trends to Look out for in 2025’. With all campaigns, if there’s a way to add any unique data or quotes on the topic, this can go a long way.

Another benefit of editorial calendars is that they will often provide deadlines – in Digital PR, it can be impossible to know the perfect time to pitch a campaign, especially when it’s a seasonal or reactive pitch as these are often planned into a publications content calendar way ahead of time!

These deadlines can help you plan, create, and pitch the campaign in plenty of time.

8) Online Communities and Forums

A range of forums, such as Reddit and Quora, can inspire campaign ideas based on what the public is talking about and asking. There are also more niche forums, such as parenting forums or creative professional networks.

Social media, such as Facebook, also has various online groups available for users to discuss a wide range of topics. 

To find relevant topics, check groups where your target audience might be looking. For example, if you’re targeting entrepreneurs, you could browse the subreddit ‘r/SmallBusiness’ on Reddit.

When looking into forums, also keep an eye out for trending questions, popular threads and topics, and discussions that occur frequently. Questions are a great way of knowing what information people want to read about.

For example, somebody asking “How can I reduce my business debt?” is a good indicator that a campaign providing tips on this topic, tying in expert comments from your client and any unique data/insights, would be beneficial to the public.

What to Consider When Brainstorming Ideas

When brainstorming ideas, the process should be approached strategically to try and ensure that the ideas will resonate with journalists and their audiences, as well as your own audience. 

Consider the following factors to refine campaign ideas and maximise their impact:

Why would journalists care about this?

Journalists won’t be interested in stories that aren’t relevant to them or their audience. Ask yourself why the journalist might care about a story – does it offer a unique perspective, original data or further information on a trending story?

Asking these questions can help you pivot your idea to help and ensure journalists will be interested.

What would the readers gain from this?

Ideally, Digital PR campaigns should inform, engage, or inspire the public. When thinking of ideas, consider how the readers might engage with the story – does it offer them a solution to a problem,  or evoke an emotional response?

These factors can increase a campaign’s chances of being picked up. It’s also worth bearing in mind how you can make this clear to journalists when pitching.

How is it unique?

According to Muck Rack’s State of Journalism report, journalists get around 50 to 100 emails a day, with high-profile writers receiving much more, so standing out is important! Is there a way to add unique data or statistics to your campaign?

Can you add a new angle to an existing story? Unique data can help make an already covered topic more original and different, which journalists will appreciate.

What assets would the campaign benefit from?

Visual assets can help to get angles and data across in a simple way – they’re particularly useful for data-led campaigns.

For example, an infographic can clearly showcase a campaign’s insights, while an interactive map or table can allow users to filter any data themselves for a better user experience.

Visual assets are also often shared on social media, providing more opportunities for exposure.

Is this evergreen?

Evergreen content is material that remains relevant, useful and valuable over an extended period. Keep in mind whether your idea could be repitched in the future, and if so, how much effort would be required to do so? Would the blog itself need altering, or would it simply just need a new press release or pitch email.

How to Freshen up Ideas for Repitching

In Digital PR, it’s impossible to judge if and when a campaign will be successful. Often, campaigns will be pitched a few times with different angles before they get picked up. To prepare for this outcome, it’s important to look for multiple angles within one campaign idea. 

Some ways to refresh campaigns for repitching can include:

Adding New Data

A campaign may not have been picked up due to the data not being unique or up-to-date, or there may not have been any data at all.

To update content for repitches, try adding in recent data that support the angle you’re pitching – internal data is ideal as this won’t already be available to journalists.

Existing data can be tied to campaigns too, but this could be less effective because it’s already out there. However, tying a few data sets together can make the angle slightly more unique.

Expert Comments

Adding expert comments to any campaign is beneficial as it positions the person providing commentary as an expert, which can make the brand and campaign more trustworthy and authoritative. Expert comments can support data, add further information, or provide opinions.

Adding expert comments into the campaign when repitching, whether it’s because they weren’t included in the original, or you’ve altered the quotes slightly to support a new angle, can go a long way.

Journalists will sometimes just take expert comments and tie them to an existing story rather than the full campaign, so including these in all pitches and repitches is key.

Infographics and Other Materials

If your original campaign didn’t have any visual assets, such as infographics or videos, and you feel it could benefit from this addition, including it in the repitch could make all the difference.

Infographics are a great way to represent data in a clear, concise way, and simply show the range of angles, saving journalists the chore of having to read through the content and find the key information themselves. If creating infographics, ensure to include branding like logos so you know the assets are yours if they get picked up.

Alternative Angles

Of course, as mentioned, using alternative angles is a key tactic for repitching campaigns. For example, if you’ve pitched a story about the best places to live in the world and it hasn’t performed great, try flipping that and pitching the worst places to live.

If you’ve produced and pitched a campaign focusing on the most dangerous roads in the UK, looking at crash data and leading with that angle, perhaps for a repitch you could focus on the local angles within this campaign, targeting local publications and leading with their area’s statistics.

Tying to Relevant News, Events, and Awareness Days

As mentioned above, campaigns relating to any new stories, events, or awareness days can provide a fresh angle to an existing campaign!

If you have pitched a campaign in the past relating to mental health, tying this campaign to a mental health awareness day, such as World Mental Health Day, can make the old campaign instantly topical and relevant again. However, be sure to update any old data or insights before repitching.

With the Digital PR industry being more competitive than ever, fresh insights and relevance are key to campaign success – standing out is key to securing media coverage. By focusing on what journalists and readers care about and adding value through data and expert comments, Digital PR campaigns can deliver maximum impact.

We hope the above tools, techniques and tips will help to provide some inspiration when producing unique, topical and relevant campaign ideas to share with journalists!

Want to build your brand awareness and boost your SEO via our exciting and innovative Digital PR campaigns unique to your sector? Get in touch today!

The post The Importance of Ideation in Digital PR appeared first on The SEO Works.

We’re proud to be recognised on the global stage, driving real results with a raft of international clients. Here’s why we are a truly global digital marketing agency.

Awards and Recognition

We are proud to have received numerous global accolades, including Integrated Search Agency of the Year and Best PPC Campaign at the Global Agency Awards 2024. We have won Global Integrated Search Agency of the Year twice, also winning in 2023.

Judges said of the agency: “The SEO Works illustrates the clear correlation between employee satisfaction and client success. The recent work section stands out … showcasing the agency’s innovative solutions and tangible impact. The narrative, prioritising people and highlighting the brilliant ‘strategy on a page’ inclusion, truly resonates, demonstrating a commitment to holistic success.”

These awards confirm The SEO Works’ standing as a top global player in digital marketing. Our focus on achieving client goals, supporting the team, and using cutting-edge techniques ensures we are well-placed to keep driving outstanding outcomes for companies internationally.

“Winning Best Global Integrated Search Agency is a fantastic achievement and demonstrates the talent and results-focused culture of our hardworking team,” said Ben Foster, CEO of The SEO Works.

“We’re delighted to be able to demonstrate our ability to get results for clients with an integrated digital marketing strategy on the global stage.”

We have been recognised as one of the fastest growing companies in the UK Fast Growth Index and the Adweek Fastest Growing Awards. Our working and team culture was also acknowledged at the Company Culture Awards in the Best Agency to work for shortlist.

Customer Satisfaction

The SEO Works is proud to be a Clutch Global winner. Clutch awards are heavily based on independently verified client reviews. Winning a Global Award means that numerous clients have provided outstanding feedback about the company’s quality of work, professionalism, and results. This indicates a strong track record of exceeding client expectations.

The “Global” aspect highlights that The SEO Works stands out amongst a vast pool of service providers across the world, signifying a truly elite level of performance. Clutch Global winners represent the top 1000 companies out of 350,000 on the Clutch platform worldwide!

“These exceptional providers demonstrate what excellence truly means in action,” said Tim Condon, Chief Revenue Officer of Clutch. “A Clutch Global Winner is a top-performing company that has consistently delighted its clients and demonstrated exceptional expertise in its field on an international level, as validated by a reputable third-party platform. Being included in the Clutch 1000 is more than an award—it’s a testament to their role as true drivers of client success.”

Clutch is seen as the “Which” for business-to-business service providers. It’s an independent B2B ratings and reviews platform that looks at a company’s market presence, the services it provides, and most importantly reviews from its clients, to determine its rankings. You can read more about the selection methodology here.

Achieving this success would not be possible without our client’s consistently positive reviews. We always aim to do everything we can to help our clients meet their goals, so there is no better feeling than knowing that they are happy with the results of our work.  We are so grateful to all of our clients who took the time to leave a review with Clutch. Here are a few of our favourites:

• They have a reputable team with some exceptionally talented individuals, and we’ve been fortunate enough to have had most of them working on our project.
• Their team provided exceptional customer service and were responsive via phone and email. Whenever we requested additional features and various changes, they were always prompt and helpful with getting things done quickly. We were extremely happy with their service.
• They understand my business and what I want to achieve. Other companies may give you a lot of statistics on what they can do, but I find that The SEO Works sticks to the work and actually delivers.

You can read more reviews here: https://clutch.co/profile/seo-works

Ben Foster, CEO at The SEO Works said: “We are committed to providing our clients with the highest level of service possible. This means having a team that is not only knowledgeable, competent, and flexible, but skilled in communication and ready to adapt to new situations and obstacles as trends in marketing shift. We’re delighted to be ranked at the top of our game globally, for the services we provide”.

End-to-End Marketing

At The SEO Works, we offer a full suite of digital marketing services, from strategy and planning to implementation and optimisation. These are built around your business and your goals. We start by getting to know you properly. That means looking at your audience, your market, and what success looks like for you.

Once we’ve got that clear, we build a strategy that brings in the right people. That might include SEO services (technical, on-page, off-page and local), PPC services, paid social ads across the platforms that matter, content marketing, and digital PR to help raise your profile. We are also experts in delivering global campaigns targeting multiple regions with international SEO.

We don’t stop at getting traffic. We focus on turning that interest into real results – whether that’s redesigning your website with an SEO-first approach or improving how your website performs through CRO (conversion rate optimisation). Throughout, we track everything closely and share regular reports, so you can see what’s working and what needs adjusting.

You will have a main point of contact for all digital marketing needs, but access to our broad team of experts, ensuring consistency and efficiency. Rather than having to manage different agencies for different services, our end-to-end services will help streamline communication and internal time management.

Global Reach

Our team has lots of experience working with international brands and organisations. We understand how to run campaigns in different countries, in different languages, and across different time zones. Whether a company is expanding into new markets or already operates overseas, The SEO Works can help them grow.

We are headquartered in the UK with offices in Sheffield, Leeds, and London, but work with clients both across the UK and internationally. Our dedicated team specialising in international SEO have successfully delivered campaigns targeting many regions, including Saudi Arabia, the USA, and Japan.

Our client portfolio includes both UK-based companies looking to expand internationally and international businesses seeking to improve their global online presence. This flexibility has helped us support global clients in sectors like healthcare, e-commerce, education, and SAAS.

Focus on Results

We pride ourselves on our ability to deliver real, measurable results for businesses – no vanity metrics, no jargon. This focus on providing a real return on investment is the foundation of our agency, and it’s what motivates us. You can see some of the results we have achieved for our clients in our detailed case studies.

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The post The SEO Works is an award-winning, end-to-end global digital marketing agency appeared first on The SEO Works.

We sit down with our Head of SEO to discuss the history, highlights and challenges of his career so far.

Paul Friend, our Head of SEO, joined The SEO Works back in 2017 as a Senior Account Manager. He worked his way up and in 2020 was promoted to Head of SEO.

We sat down with Paul to deep dive into the most rewarding aspects of his role, and the more challenging parts. Here’s what he had to say…

Please introduce yourself…

Hi, I’m Paul and I’m Head of SEO at The SEO Works. In September, I will have been here for 8 years! 

I’ve actually been in the industry for 20 years. I started as a PR account handler all the way back in 2005, but since 2017 have been working my way up to where I am today at The SEO Works – now managing a team of more than 40 SEOs!

Tell us about a proud moment in your career

Being given the opportunity to lead the SEO team here, and most importantly, being able to contribute to the rapid expansion and development of the department over the last four years is something I am extremely proud of.

If I’ve played a small part in helping an account manager or campaign succeed, then that’s the ultimate validation of what we’re trying to achieve here.

What is the biggest industry challenge in 2025?

The biggest challenge will be responding to the rapidly developing AI landscape. We must be able to see through the sales patter and hype to find those use-cases that actually benefit clients’ SEO campaigns and provide value to their audiences.

I think the fast pace and ever-changing nature of SEO is ultimately what keeps the sector interesting. Because of this, the industry today is fairly unrecognisable from the one I started in around 16-17 years ago.

Techniques, technologies and ranking factors come and go, but if you put the user at the heart of everything you do, you can insulate yourself against any industry volatility.

How does your team set itself apart?

Our shared values and a shared vision sets my team apart from our competition. We’ve always tried to encourage our more experienced colleagues to ‘pay it back’ – make time to give newer members of the team the benefit of your knowledge and experience.

We also really try to listen; to what our team needs, to what our clients’ need, to what’s happening in the wider industry – that way, we can continue to develop and deliver a service that’s best.

Can you tell us what makes your job rewarding?

The most fulfilling aspect of the role is definitely seeing the individual team members develop their knowledge and hone their expertise in SEO.

We’ve had many colleagues join us as Account Executives who then progress all the way to Senior Account Managers or Team Leaders, and I think we’ve done a great job as a company in creating an environment where that kind of progression can happen.

Please tell us an exciting development in SEO

One of the areas I’m really interested in is the connection between your overall digital brand ‘strength’ and your organic search performance. I doubt Google will ever explicitly say there’s a direct link between the two, but there does seem to be mounting anecdotal evidence to suggest that’s the case.

So there we have it, Paul looking back (and forward) into the world of SEO and his life at The SEO Works.

If you wish to work with Paul and his fab team, please get in touch. We assist with a number of clients across the UK and Internationlly with their SEO to bosst organic ranking and encourage site traffic. Click here to enquire today!

The post Introducing our Head of SEO: Paul Friend appeared first on The SEO Works.

SEO and digital marketing is undergoing a major shift at the moment. With the rise of AI, frequent algorithm updates, and new innovative technologies that are influencing user behaviour massively, it can feel more challenging than ever to stay on top of the best practices for online success.

Thankfully, amidst the chaos, there’s one area of search marketing that has consistently remained the foundation of organic search performance: on-page SEO. 

In this guide, we’re going to break down everything you need to master the art of on-page SEO in 2025; whether you’re a beginner just finding your feet or an experienced SEO veteran with the results to prove it.

Packed with all the fundamentals as well as the latest tips, tricks and strategies, this guide is the only on-page SEO resource you’ll need to dominate your competitors in the SERPs.

Presented in this clear, easy-to-follow on-page SEO guide, you’ll learn how to:

• Craft high-value, impactful content that satisfies search intent.
• Write keyword-optimised metadata to reach your target audience and drive clicks.
• Structure your content optimally for both the user and search engines.
• How to place keywords correctly to boost rankings.
• Leverage your experience and expertise within your content.

Let’s get started!

On-Page SEO: Key Takeaways

• Google prioritises content that is original, helpful, and satisfies search intent. To excel, your content should be people-first, authoritative, and well-structured for an optimal user experience.

• Optimising meta titles is one of the most impactful on-page SEO tactics you can use. Make sure they are keyword targeted and a suitable length (55-60 characters).

• Structure your website using descriptive URLs organised into subfolders. This improves clarity for both users and search engines, helping them understand your content and its place within the site hierarchy.

• As a rule, target keyword mentions should be strategically placed within the H1, the introductory section of your content, and within supplementary headings (H2s, H3s, H4s…).

Page speed and Core Web Vitals reports aren’t everything. If your site feels fast, is responsive, easy to navigate, and free of content shift issues, it’s better to focus your efforts elsewhere – even if there’s still room for improvement in your PageSpeed Insights report.

What is On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO is the process of optimising ‘on-site’ elements of your website for both search engines and users.

By focussing on key ranking signals, the practice of on-page SEO makes it easier for Google to recognise how great your website is at helping users reach their end goal. This goal could be to make a purchase, learn about a new topic, or to simply scroll through an endless archive of cute cat photos.

Ultimately, webpages that help users achieve their goals are what search engines prioritise when assessing content quality.

The more straightforward it is for search engines to recognise how relevant and useful your content is for users based on their search query, the better your pages will rank and the more traffic they will drive. 

We achieve this by carrying out on-page SEO.

On-page SEO elements include:

• Meeting search intent
• Content quality and relevance
• Meta titles and descriptions
• Header tags
• URL structure
• Internal/external links

And much more.

Why is On-Page SEO Important?

By considering on-page SEO factors, you can create website content that is compliant and follows Google’s guidelines to the letter, whilst also offering a great user experience.

This way, your pages meet the expectations of both search engines and the user, creating the perfect recipe for organic success.

On-Page SEO vs. Off-Page SEO

On-page SEO is opposed to off-page SEO, which focusses on ‘off-site’ factors such as backlinks and other influences from external sources with the aim of improving keyword rankings. 

Both are integral to any comprehensive SEO strategy. However, on-page SEO is often the starting point given that it’s easier to control and generally delivers more immediate, tangible results.

11 Effective On-Page SEO Techniques and Best Practices for your Website in 2025

Now that we know what on-page SEO is and why it’s so important, we’re ready to jump into the good stuff.

Here are 11 of the most important on-page SEO techniques to remember and follow in your pursuit of position #1 rankings.

1) Helpful Content is Still King

If you’re in any way familiar with SEO, chances are you’ve heard the term ‘helpful content’ thrown around quite a lot over the past few years – and for good reason.

It might seem obvious, but every piece of content you create should focus on delivering genuine value to the person on the other side of the screen. The goal is to satisfy their search intent while guiding them toward achieving their end goal as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

This has been the focal point of a number of Google’s recent core algorithm updates, starting with the aptly named Helpful Content Update released in 2022.
The core idea is that all content should be helpful, reliable, and people-first, designed to serve the reader and not just to gain search engine rankings. Pages should also offer a positive user experience, taking navigation, page speed, and Core Web Vitals metrics into account.

How can you assess how helpful your content is?

Before looking at any of the more complex aspects of on-page SEO, you need to decide if your content is strong enough to rank in the first place. 

Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to judge if your content is likely to meet Google’s expectations on helpfulness:

Originality and Value

• Does your content provide original insights, research, or substantial additional value beyond existing sources?
• Does your content cover the topic thoroughly with insightful analysis and comprehensive detail?

Expertise, Trust, and Accuracy

• Is your content written or reviewed by a knowledgeable expert, with clear factual accuracy sourcing where appropriate?
• Does your content clearly demonstrate first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge?
• If someone researched your site, would they find it well-trusted or recognised as an authority on the topic discussed?

Quality

• Is your content well-written, free of errors, and produced with care rather than mass-produced or automated?

User Experience and Satisfaction

• Does your content leave the reader feeling informed and satisfied without needing to search further?
• Would the reader want to bookmark, share, or recommend this content to others?
• Is your content responsive and easy to read across all different browsers and devices?

Relevance and Purpose

• Is your content aligned with the site’s audience and purpose, rather than created mainly for search rankings?
• Are you writing about trending topics just for traffic rather than genuine audience value?

Transparency and Ethical Practices

• Does your content avoid misleading tactics, such as clickbait headlines or artificial freshness updates?
• Are your sources and authorship clearly disclosed, supporting your content’s credibility?

For more information on helpful content criteria and guidelines, check out Google’s documentation on helpful, people-first content

2) Keyword-Optimised Metadata is the META

Optimised metadata is one of the most fundamental elements of any successful SEO strategy.

Think of metadata as the ‘shop window’ to your site. It’s often the user’s first impression of your page, its content, and sometimes even your brand as a whole. 

Your metadata can make or break whether a user decides to click-through to your site or not, so it’s vital to write it manually with your target audience in mind.

Metadata isn’t only important for users and boosting click-through rates (CTR), it’s also one of the first on-page elements search engines look at to understand and rank your page. This makes target keyword mentions super important.

Meta Titles

Meta titles are a direct ranking factor, meaning search engines use them to determine where your page should rank. Therefore, the primary keyword for your page should be included within the meta title to help improve organic visibility for that term.

For the best results, meta titles should be between 50-60 characters in length. This length maximises your piece of SERP real estate, whilst also avoiding truncation which can make titles appear cut off and less engaging.

Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions are not a direct ranking factor so they don’t impact page ranking. However, they give readers a preview into what your page is about and what you can offer them. Make sure they’re still high-quality!

In terms of length, meta descriptions should be between 155-160 characters in length, again to make the most of the space available to you whilst avoiding any truncation.

Using Google SERP preview tools can help with writing meta titles and descriptions.

To summarise, meta titles and descriptions should be written to entice the user to click-through to your page by clearly conveying value. To improve rankings, target keywords should be integrated into meta titles to tell search engines what your content is about. 
For more detailed guidance and tips for optimising meta tags for SEO, read our guide on the topic.

3) Clean, Descriptive and User-Friendly URLs

Google makes a point of emphasising the importance of using descriptive URLs on your site. But, what is exactly meant by the term ‘descriptive’?

What is a Descriptive URL?

A descriptive URL is a link that provides users with the proper information and context they need to understand where the link will take them on the website.

This means that they will be absent from random characters and identifiers which have no meaning to a user.

Descriptive URL Examples

“https://www.bestonlineshop.com/electronics/wireless-earphones”

“https://www.jbsgolfemporium.com/blog/expert-golf-putting-guide”

Non-descriptive URL Examples

“https://www.bestonlineshop.com/electronics/?p=98765&ref=cat1”

“https://www.jbsgolfemporium.com/blog/category1/page5678”

As a rule, your website pages should be logically categorised using subfolders by using URLs that create a hierarchical structure.

This signals to users and search engines how your pages are related to each other and the rest of the site, making it easier for Google to match your content with related searches and for users to navigate your pages.

4) Strategic Keyword Placement Within Content

So, you’ve chosen target keywords, now what? How do you make sure you’ve mentioned them enough in your content?

There are 3 main areas within your content where you should place target keywords for maximum impact. These are:

1. The H1
2. The introduction (usually your first paragraph)
3. Supplementary headers (H2s, H3s, H4s etc.) and copy

By doing this, you’re clearly signaling to Google what your content is about while making it easy for users to scan and decide if it matches their search intent. 

But that’s not all.

How does Google Assess Keyword Density Within Content?

Okay, things are about to get a little nerdy.

Search engines don’t read your content like humans do. In fact, they can’t read at all. They’re robots!

Instead, Google uses what is known as the TF*IDF algorithm, as part of their wider page rank algorithm. TF*IDF sounds complicated and the technical details aren’t super important here, but think of it like this…

Google is trying to understand what your page is really about by looking at the words you’ve used and how often you’ve used them compared to the rest of the internet. It does this using maths, not language.

TF (Term Frequency)

As the phrase suggests, this part of the formula checks how many times you’ve used a certain keyword or phrase.

As an example, imagine you’re at a party and someone says the word “pizza” 20 times in a single conversation. You’d probably assume that pizza is pretty important to whatever they’re talking about, right? 

That’s essentially what Google does with TF – it checks how many times each word appears on your page to understand what’s being discussed.

IDF (Inverse Document Frequency)

The IDF side of the formula is there to calculate if the keyword Google has recognised is special, or whether it’s just like any other word.

Going back to the previous example, if everyone else at the party is also saying “pizza” 20 times in their conversations, it’s not as unique or special anymore – it’s just a common topic of the night.

IDF helps Google figure out if a word is rare and meaningful, or just something everyone else is using, like “the”, “and”, or any other filler word.

So, what does this mean?

To put TF*IDF together, Google combines these two ideas to find words that:

• Show up a lot on your page (TF).
• Aren’t super common compared to the rest of the internet (IDF).

So, if your page talks a lot about “sourdough pizza crust” and that phrase isn’t everywhere else, Google can assume that your page is likely about sourdough pizza crust!

How do you Optimise for Keyword Density?

If there’s a formula for working out keyword density, then there must be a way to get the perfect ratio of keyword mentions across your content, right?

Well, maybe. SEO content writing tools like Surfer SEO use the TF*IDF algorithm and Natural Language Processing (NLP) principles when assessing how ‘optimised’ a piece of content is within their software. 

A lot of content writers believe in using tools like this to ensure their content is as keyword-optimised as possible for SEO rankings because the software calculates how many times other well-ranked pieces of content use certain key phrases.

Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it – tools like this might work well for you, especially in competitive niches where any advantage you can get is valuable. However, when it comes to on-page SEO, it’s never essential to make everything ‘go green’ within a content optimisation tool. If anything, this can encourage unnatural keyword stuffing.

In reality, TF*IDF is just a small part of Google’s algorithm for deciding page rankings.

Whilst it’s cool to know about TF*IDF and pull back the curtain, it’s best to go back to the golden rule: prioritise that your content is people-first, offers value to the reader and satisfies their search intent.

Focus on placing targeted keyword mentions naturally throughout your content e.g. your H1, introduction, as well as other supplementary headings/copy and you’ll be just fine.

5) Hierarchical Heading Structures

A well-optimised heading structure can transform reading a piece of content from a long and tedious slog into a smooth and engaging experience. 

The majority of web content nowadays is written to be easily scanned by the reader. This way, the content is accessible to a wide range of audiences. 

Headings (H1, H2, H3, etc.) allow you to split your content up into digestible sections, helping the user to find the information they need in as little effort as possible.

Headings also give search engines context and clues into what your content is about. Google uses this information to decide whether your page should be ranked for relevant search queries.

Heading Hierarchy tips for On-Page SEO

Your heading structure should have a clear hierarchy to it, representing content importance and flow. Here’s how it works:

• H1: Serves as your page title and should summarise what your content is about. The H1 is one of the most important on-page ranking factors, should only be used once per page, and must include your target keyword.

• H2s: Used to break your content up into key sections to improve readability and provide additional content to search engines. These headers should contain primary and secondary keyword mentions to build relevance with the key topic.

• H3s: Used for breaking sections up into subtopics to go into more detail.

• H4s (and deeper headings): Used for splitting subtopics up into sub-subtopics.

Jumplinks

It’s also good practice to use headings to set up jumplinks, especially with long-form content. Jumplinks help users to easily ‘leap’ to specific sections of your content and get to their end goal faster. 

Jumplinks are often included as built-in features of blog post templates, like ‘Tables of Contents’. However, in some cases, you’ll need to create them manually by adding ID attributes to each heading in the HTML and setting up anchor links.

6) Internal Linking

Internal links are hyperlinks on your website that point from one page to another. 

Effective internal linking is essential for helping users to navigate through your pages, as well as ensuring search engine bots can easily crawl and discover your content.

Not only this, internal links are also needed to pass link equity from the most important, high authority pages throughout your site structure to deeper pages, making your entire site appear stronger in the eyes of search engines.

Why are Internal Links Important for On-Page SEO?

• Acting as signposts, they help users to navigate your website. This could be via the menu, buttons, or in-text anchor links.

• Similarly, they also help search engine crawlers to move throughout your site, find content and assess it for rankings. Good internal linking improves crawlability and indexability.

• Descriptive anchor text provides context to search engines about what the linked page is about and what keyword it should rank for.

• Internally linking from one page to another signals to Google that these pages are related and the linked page is valuable. This is integral to the process of building SEO topic clusters.

• Your homepage and top-performing pages often hold the most page rank. By internally linking from these high-authority pages to deeper content, you share that authority, helping those pages to rank better too.

For more information on internal linking for SEO, check out our helpful guide on the topic.

7) External Linking

External links, also known as outbound links, are hyperlinks on your website that point to pages on a different site. 

External linking can sometimes seem counterintuitive to SEO efforts. After all, why would you want to divert traffic away from your site?

Well, strategic external linking is actually good for your SEO efforts, particularly when it comes to informational content. When done right, external links add credibility, provide deeper context, and improve how search engines view your content. Yet, they’re often underutilised when it comes to on-page SEO. Here’s why they deserve more attention:

Why are External Links Important for On-Page SEO?

• Linking to authoritative, trustworthy sources helps back up your claims, making your content more informative and reliable. This is especially important if you operate within a Your-Money, Your-Life (YMYL) niche.

• External links can provide additional resources for users looking for more in-depth information. When used thoughtfully, they create a richer, more valuable experience for your audience.

• Quality external linking is a hallmark of well-researched content. Google values pages that offer useful resources, especially for in-depth articles where users expect references and further reading.

When it comes to implementing external links, prioritise well-established, credible websites over lower-quality sources. Anchor text should clearly describe what users can expect from the linked page to offer the best user experience. 

It’s also a good idea to set external links to open in a new tab – this way if users do decide to check out the linked content, your site remains open on their device and they don’t forget about you!

8) Flex your Expertise & Experience

If you have a website that sells products, offers services, and produces content within a particular niche or industry, search engines bank on you being an expert within your space to deliver the best possible experience to its users.

Google’s algorithm is designed to rank pages that demonstrate a high level of knowledge and competence. This keeps search results up to scratch, offering accurate and reliable content that users need to maintain trust in the platform.

Optimising for “E-E-A-T” or Expertise, Experience, Authoratativeness, and Trustworthiness is how we work to meet these expectations. Google’s quality rater guidelines outline criteria for assessing informational quality – by following these guidelines you can position your site as a trusted resource. Here are some tips:

On-Page SEO Tactics for Strengthening E-E-A-T:

• Use Trust Signals: Do you or your team members have a bunch of certifications and qualifications within the industry or field you’re in? Display them proudly across your key pages! The same goes for customer reviews of your products/services.

• Write a Detailed ‘About Us’ Page: Make it easy for users to learn more about you and your business. An ‘About Us’ page is the perfect place for you to tell your story and build trust with potential customers.

• Link to Useful Sources of Information: If you’re writing detailed informational guides about in-depth topics, externally linking to sources and other relevant sites can help to show credibility, authority and trustworthiness.

• Use Expert Quotes: Another great way to strengthen informational content is to directly quote experts within your niche – it’s even better if these are quotes from primary sources within your team. Be sure to outline your expert’s experience within the industry and list any relevant qualifications they hold.

Demonstrate First-Hand Experience: Don’t just tell users about a topic, show them you know what you’re talking about. Include images, videos, screenshots and other forms of media that prove your expertise and experience to users and search engines.

E-E-A-T Resources:

If you’re looking to learn more about E-E-A-T and how to strengthen your website in this area, check out the following resources we’ve put together to help you:

• E-E-A-T at a Glance
• E-E-A-T SEO Checklist

9) Don’t Forget to Optimise Images

Images can help to improve the search visibility of your site in a few ways, from them ranking in Google Images to appearing in search features like image carousels, featured snippets and more.

To make the most of your images, it’s a good idea to follow a few on-page SEO tactics to help search engines understand your images in the context of your content, meaning they work a little harder for the performance of your site.

Alt Text

Alt text, or alternative text, is a short description of an image for both users and search engines that describes exactly what the image is. It’s especially important for accessibility, allowing visually impaired users to understand images through screen readers.

Best Practices for Alt Text

• Be as descriptive as possible but don’t waffle on! Be nice and concise. For example, “A large pepperoni pizza with a stuffed crust” over “pizza”.

Include relevant keyword mentions wherever you can, naturally.

Image File Names

Search engines use image files names to understand images better. Remember to rename your images when you upload them.

Best Practices for Image File Names

• Include a target keyword mention where you can.
• Be concise and descriptive. For example, “pepperoni-pizza-stuffed-crust.svg”.

Next-Gen Formats & Image Compression

Out with ‘pngs’ and ‘jpgs’ and in with next-gen image formats! These most commonly include WebP, SVG, and AVIF formats, which compress image sizes massively whilst retaining the same high-quality. 

This makes next-gen formats ideal for use on websites as they help to improve page speed by requiring the browser to load less data in comparison to large traditional formats.

To convert images from traditional formats to next-gen formats you can use a wide selection of tools, ranging from online conversion platforms to CMS plugins and content delivery networks (CDNs). 

It’s always best to consult a web developer on the best way for your site to implement next-gen image formats – you never know what dev magic they’ll be able to conjure up for you.

10) Page Speed & Core Web Vitals

Optimising for page speed is a key component of on-page SEO and helps to guarantee a great user experience for visitors to your site, improving engagement and retention. Page speed is also a direct ranking factor, meaning it could make the difference when it comes to outranking the competition. 

Along with optimising images and serving them in next-gen formats, there are plenty of other ways you can speed up your page load times and improve responsiveness by optimising other on-page elements.

PageSpeed Insights is a free tool provided by Google which you can use to audit the speed and performance of each page on your site on both desktop and mobile devices.

On-Page SEO: Speed Considerations

• Reduce unused/unnecessary code: PageSpeed insights will flag any unused JavaScript and CSS that is bloating your page and increasing load times. Removing unnecessary code like this, especially if they are sending separate HTTP requests, is a great way to improve page load speed.

• JavaScript/CSS Minification: Web developers like their code to look pretty and be easy to read, but sometimes this isn’t ideal for page speed. JS/CS minification is the process of removing unnecessary characters and spaces from code to reduce file sizes. 

• Gzip compression: Gzip is a type of data compression that reduces file sizes before they are sent to the user, improving the speed of content delivery.

Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals (CWVs) are user experience metrics used by Google to judge how well your site performs in terms of interactivity and visual stability. 

Using PageSpeed Insights, you can assess your pages, and Google will provide feedback on whether you’ve passed or failed across each of these metrics, along with recommendations on how to improve.

Whilst CWV scores are ranking factors, Google has emphasised that they are not as important as others.

The general advice is to optimise for page speed and CWVs only if you notice your site is feeling slow or if there are clear issues that could harm the user experience – not just to simply improve PageSpeed Insights scores. 

Put yourself in the shoes of your user and browse your site. If you think that pages are responsive, load quickly and there are no issues with visual stability, then great! The chances are that your performance is more than acceptable and should focus your attention elsewhere.

Page Speed Resources

Improving page speed and Core Web Vitals can sometimes feel like a jargon-filled nightmare. If you’re struggling to get your head around some of the key concepts, check out the following resources from our expert team:

• PageSpeed Insights Helpsheet
• Understanding PageSpeed Insights Metrics

11) Structured Data

Structured data, also known as Schema, is a type of code that provides search engines with additional context about your content. 

Schema helps search engines better understand specific details and information on your pages, allowing them to improve the appearance of your content in results pages by generating rich snippets.

Common Types of Structured Data

• Product Schema
• Article Schema
• Breadcrumb Schema
• FAQ Schema
• Local Business Schema
• Organisation Schema
• Review Schema
• Event Schema
• Video Schema
• Person Schema

Here’s an example of recipe schema at work, enhancing the appearance of these site’s pages in the SERPs:

To quickly assess the structured data on your site, you can use tools like Google Search Console, or website crawlers such as Screaming Frog and Sitebulb. These will give you a snapshot of how well your structured data is set up.

If you’re adding or updating structured data, using a schema markup generator can be a huge time saver. Depending on your CMS, there may even be a plugin that can automatically generate types of schema for you.

Finally, once your structured data is generated and live, be sure to use schema.org’s Schema Validator to see if everything is working properly and compliant.

Your Leading On-Page SEO Service Provider

Now we’ve covered all the most important on-page SEO techniques and tactics for online success, you should feel more confident applying them to your own website.

However, if you’d prefer some help from the experts, look no further than our award-winning team at The SEO Works. With over 15 years of proven success in the industry, we’ve delivered outstanding results for clients across various sectors.

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PPC is a huge part of the digital marketing space, with search advertisers estimated to have spent $190.5 billion globally in 2024 (Statista, 2023). It’s a massively influential and useful tool to use for businesses of all sizes to achieve a range of objectives, usually to generate more sales or leads.

While we find a lot of businesses see huge success in venturing out to PPC marketing, we do see many fall short for a number of reasons. One of the biggest and most overlooked factors are the landing pages you take your audiences to. A successful and effective PPC campaign doesn’t end at the ad itself, what happens after a user clicks and lands on your website is just as important.

This is where PPC landing pages come into play…

What is a PPC Landing Page?

A PPC landing page, quite simply, is a standalone web page(s) specifically created to receive traffic from a paid ad.

When compared to webpages, a PPC landing page is designed to be laser focused on a single objective, including relevant and persuasive content in order to encourage users to take the desired action in line with your objectives. Whereas a general webpage on your main website may contain a broader range of information. It’s vital that your landing pages are aligned with the intent from your ad campaigns in order to create that seamless and relevant experience for your users who come from the ads.

Why Are Landing Pages Important?

As we’ve already outlined, one of the main reasons why we encourage businesses to have PPC landing pages is to create synergy between your ads and your website, this gives you a greater ad-to-website experience which ultimately helps drive better results and higher ROI.

We’ve discussed some of the core dos and don’ts when creating a PPC landing page in a previous blog which you can read here. One of the main focuses of these pages is to keep it simple- avoid distracting your audience.

These factors are one of the reasons why a PPC landing page is so important. If you decide for your audience to land on your homepage, or a ‘normal’ webpage, you may be at risk of overwhelming them with too many choices.

Your homepage might provide an overview of your brand, list all of your services or products, and include a large navigation menu that goes to various parts of your site. This works really well for general visitors as you’re looking to nurture them through a longer journey, however, this type of layout can distract your PPC audiences from taking the main action you want.

If your ad campaigns are designed to drive more conversions, then your PPC landing page can capture your audience and reinforce this intent in a few ways:

• Simple layout
• Testimonials
• Limited time offers 
• Easy to reach CTA’s (Call To Actions) 

All of these features will help make your PPC funnel that much more effective and optimised for generating conversions.

Alongside this is the benefit of an improved ROI. Every click in your PPC campaign will ultimately cost you money, and by taking users to a targeted page which is designed to convert PPC users, you’re making every pound count.

The Other Benefits of PPC Landing Pages

As we’ve discussed so far, the main benefits of landing pages are having a strong relevance and alignment with your ads alongside pushing for a better conversion rate and ROI. However, there are four other benefits you can get with a PPC landing page:

1) Improved Quality Score

Having a highly relevant PPC landing page that provides a good user experience plays a great role in boosting the overall performance of the ad account by improving its quality score.

Google’s quality score is a key metric of an ad account, it’s made up of multiple components, but the most relevant one is the overall landing page experience. This measures the relevance of your landing page to your ad and keywords, as well as the user experience of the landing page itself, including site speed and usability.

Provided you have chosen keywords which are relevant to your business, an improved quality score can lead to cheaper CPCs (Cost Per Click) and a better positioning of your ad placements in search results. By having compelling, relevant content within your PPC landing pages as well as offering a seamless user experience, you can boost your overall ad account performance outside of conversions and ROI.

2) A/B Testing Opportunities

With a specific landing page for PPC, you should have a greater opportunity to change and test different elements of the page itself. These could be things that you wouldn’t necessarily be able to change on your main website as it could have knock-on effects.

However, with a PPC landing page it’s much easier to change headlines, CTAs, the positioning of product information / contact form as well as the overall layout, allowing you to test what does and doesn’t work for the best results.

3) Precise Tracking and Analytics

A third great benefit of PPC landing pages is the fact you’re able to analyse performance more accurately than with your standard, core webpages. You’ll be able to review metrics like bounce rates, time on page and conversion rates. This gives you the data to make decisions for your A/B testing opportunities which in turn, gives you a positive feedback loop when seeing which layouts or design choices work best.

4) Scalability

Once you begin to optimise your campaigns based on this increased level of data, your campaigns will start to grow and so can your collection of landing pages. Once you find a landing page layout that works for your main ad funnel, you can start to expand on this to cover other areas of your business. Allowing for continuous improvement and scaling of results.

Final Thoughts

While normal webpages are essential for general traffic, they’ll likely fall short when it comes to driving relevant traffic and conversions from a PPC campaign. Having a well-designed PPC landing page will ultimately bridge the gap between the user searching for your relevant business keywords, visiting your ad and completing your desired action. This can help you align better with your ad campaigns, engage your audience further and drive more conversions.

The post Beyond Your Ads: Why is it Important to Have a PPC Landing Page? appeared first on The SEO Works.