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30 SEO Tips for 2021 11 Jun 2021 12:59 AM (3 years ago)

We’ve been busy writing a 5,000 word blog post with lots of tips and tricks for those in SEO. Hopefully, there are some useful tips for novices and the more advanced as well.

Head over and read our blog SEO tips and tricks 2021

28 Top Google Ads Tricks & Tips 7 Mar 2021 10:05 AM (4 years ago)

We’ve put together a blog with tips and tricks that will help those new to Pay Per Click and Google Ads, and also help as a refresher for those more experienced with search engine marketing.

Read our blog 28 Top Google Ads Tricks & Tips To Help You Create An Effective Campaign In 2021.

What to Ask an SEO Agency When Hiring Them 12 Dec 2020 10:06 PM (4 years ago)

How do you choose a good SEO agency? By asking the right questions.

There are a lot of good agencies with seasoned SEOs that have earned their stripes, however, unfortunately, as there’s no barrier to entry and anyone can set up an SEO agency or become an SEO there’s also a lot of poor performing agencies that’ll just take your money and deliver very little.

Read the full article for suggestions on questions we’d ask an SEO agency if we were going to hire them

SEO is More Than Keywords 12 Dec 2020 9:55 PM (4 years ago)

Although keywords and keyword research is very important, SEO isn’t just about installing WordPress, installing the Yoast SEO Plugin, adding your focus keyword and if you get a green traffic light from Yoast then job done. All you’ll have to do now is sit back and wait for Google to crawl, index, and rank your site highly. That’s not how SEO works.

Read the full article below on why SEO is more than keywords.

SEO Isn’t Just About Keywords: Here’s Why! – Codefixer

Schema Makes for Great SEO Results 2 May 2020 8:40 PM (4 years ago)

SEO has had a tough time over the years particularly with Google Ads increasingly dominating the SERPS.
Google will often throw a few scraps to keep the SEO community happy, Schema is one of those. I love the listings that you can generate using Schema. Here’s one that gets you excited as an SEO. What a listing!

There’s more details here on how to make your results standout using Schema

Our article on how we generated over 1 million pound for a client using Google Shopping is also live on the Codefixer website.

2 Years Since the Last Post 28 Mar 2020 11:22 AM (5 years ago)

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, over 2 years! Crazy how time flies.

The last 2 years have flown past. I’ve spent most of that time building an SEO & PPC team and putting systems in place at Codefixer. On top of that I’ve been running largely successful campaigns for clients and providing small group or 1-1 training courses on everything from Google Analytics to SEO.

In those 2 years I’ve learnt so much from others. Providing custom training courses has been a great opportunity to audit the websites of so many other businesses and get to spend time with other talented marketers. Building a team of search specialists who have made big contributions to client campaigns is hugely rewarding. Doing less day to day implementation work has also given me the opportunity to focus more on strategy.

When I first started doing SEO for my own sites, I wrote a lot. Over the years this has dried up. This year I’m hoping to post more often.

Here’s a few posts that we’ve added recently on Codefixer;

How to Fix Unwanted Sitelinks – written by the newest member of the Codefixer team, Ray.

How to Make your Search Results Stand Out with Schema Markup

Intro To SEO Training, Belfast | 21st February 2018 24 Jan 2018 4:55 AM (7 years ago)

Learn the basics of SEO in 2018 with a new date added to the Intro To SEO Training Course in Belfast.

Spaces are limited to 6 per training session.

Duration: 1 day
Level: Introduction
Class Size: 6 Max
Price:
Earlybird £150
Standard £175

Schedule 9:30 – 16:30

Tel/Email Support

What the Course Covers:

1. What is SEO
2. Relying on SEO
3. Benefits and downsides of SEO
4. Search engine history
5. A breakdown of where traffic comes from
6. Makeup of a Google Search
7. Percentage of traffic Organic search gets
8. Benchmarking your site
9. Benefits of Google Analytics
10. Keyword tracking software
11. On site SEO and ranking factors
12. Off site ranking factors
13. Diagnosing problems with your site
14. Keyword research
15. Competitor research
16. Link building
17. SEO in 2018

Please use the contact form for more details or to book.

One Day Intro to SEO Training Course 10 Nov 2017 7:28 AM (7 years ago)

I’m running an introduction into SEO Training Course on 29th November at the Wellington Park Business Centre on the Malone Road.

Spaces are limited to 6 per training session.

Duration: 1 day
Level: Introduction
Class Size: 6 Max
Price:
Earlybird £150
Standard £175

Schedule 9:30 – 16:30

Tel/Email Support

What the Course Covers:

1. What is SEO
2. Relying on SEO
3. Benefits and downsides of SEO
4. Search engine history
5. A breakdown of where traffic comes from
6. Makeup of a Google Search
7. Percentage of traffic Organic search gets
8. Benchmarking your site
9. Benefits of Google Analytics
10. Keyword tracking software
11. On site SEO and ranking factors
12. Off site ranking factors
13. Diagnosing problems with your site
14. Keyword research
15. Competitor research
16. Link building

Please use the contact form for more details or to book.

SEO Thoughts April 2017 8 Apr 2017 7:41 AM (8 years ago)

There’s been a lot of big moves recently in the world of SEO and I’ve been busy with all things Codefixer too. I’ve put together a quick roundup of my thoughts in the last few months.

DMOZ Shutting Down

As of 14th march 2017, DMOZ if officially closed for business. For those seasoned SEO campaigners like myself, this is an end of an era. It was set up back in June 1998 and was popular due to directory links from DMOZ carrying plenty of authority in terms of PageRank.

The human editors rather than an automated directory listing enhanced its reputation as spammy links weren’t permitted to the mass scale extent as other, less reputable directories which Google has moved to eradicate over the number of years. Along with the Yahoo directory closing back in 2014, it shows the end of an era with phasing out of human edited website directories and the inevitable rise of SEO automation from search engines like Google.

It’s an era that I’ll remember with fondness and frustration in equal measure. I’ve had cases with website submissions to DMOZ that were accepted within 2 days – and others that took 2 years! Some didn’t even get included. Human edited website indexing is limited to working hours whereas automation form the likes of Google is always implementing website indexing 24 hours a day, so the end of the DMOZ style era was always on the horizon.

However, it is sad to see it go and it will be a challenge for us SEOs to source links with that kind of authority in the future.

Google My Business update

Google My Business works on a star rating business similar to other sites like Facebook’s Business pages or TripAdvisor. However, they are now showing star ratings for just ONE review:

This is good news to help you stand out more in search results. Getting just 1 review through your Google My Business listing from a customer will display start ratings. It is still worth remembering to allow 3-5 business days following a submitted review before your star listing appears, though it can happend quicker.

The Technical SEO Revival

Technical SEO has made a big comeback over the last couple of years. I’ve recently witnessed a dramatic performance (or over performance) of a website that has strong onsite SEO in place, but was now really reaping the rewards.

Improving the site’s ‘crawlability’ for Google’s crawlers to index your website using tools like Google Search Console and optimising the site for higher CTR (click-through-rate) made the rankings of the site go BOOM!

Writing strong, consistent page titles and meta descriptions in the same style you would write ads for a commercial site works wonders

Small Business Targeting Google.ie & Google.co.uk

Over the years, there’s been much discussion about how small business can target both Southern and Northern Ireland with the one website. Though I’ve yet to hear a clear cut strategy.

I’m not talking about having 2 sites with a .ie and a .co.uk/com with different content, but getting traffic to one site from both regions for small business websites. This has been a tricky issue for many small businesses I have encountered, particularly some based on the border that have a relevant audience from both sides of the border.

I did hear one suggestion recently from the head of a top UK digital agency. His suggestion was to use the hreflang tag. However, this would involve additional work as from my understanding, there would need to be one homepage for UK targeting and another one for Ireland. You would need to have the same site on your .com/uk domain and the .com/.ie as well.

It’s a suggestion I’m going to test, so I’ll keep you posted. If anyone has any other ideas, I’d like to hear them!

Google Analytics – Demo Account Now Available

A wee useful tip for those of you who want to experiment with the features of Google Analytics, even if you don’t have access to an account yet. Google has a free demo account that you can access with demo data to experiment with. More details of the Google Analytics demo account here. Google has provided lots of Google Analytics learning resources. You can let me know how you get on!

Out & About

The last couple of months have been very busy round here, though there’s been time to visit Google Headquarters in London, the excellent Learn InBound conference in Dublin and I can’t wait to hit Brighton SEO in the next few weeks. The agenda looks brilliant and with so many different tracks including Local SEO, Paid Search, Site Speed and Onsite SEO – it’ll be hard to pick which ones to go to. This draft has been sitting here for a week or so, and in that time I’ve just got back from BrightonSEO, and I can tell you it was well worth the journey. It’s amazing to think just how big this industry is now, with 3,500 digital marketers packed into the Brighton Centre. Hopefully I’ll get a blog post up with my thoughts on the conference, both good and bad. Not only was the event worth it, the weather was sunny and warm.

Why Using Yell for AdWords Should Come with a Health Risk 29 Dec 2016 3:41 AM (8 years ago)

Yell used to be one of the best options to advertise your business with back in the 80s and 90s with their Yellow Pages. The big yellow book was the first stop when people where looking for businesses.

The internet exploded out of the traps in the early 2000s and the Yellow Pages began to lose out to cheaper, measurable online marketing. They ‘adapted’ by realising they needed to move online with their own business directory Yell.com. They also started offering PPC (pay-per-click) advertising as a ‘service’ using Google AdWords.

This may seem like a natural progression for a company like Yell to offer online advertising listings – though it doesn’t mean they’re any good at it!

Lack of transparency

Yell.com may claim that PPC is a great way for them to drive business to your website. However, not only are they in full control of the wheel – you’re not even allowed in the vehicle!

In my experience Yell don’t let you see the search terms that you are paying for clicks on or how much they bid on the keywords. It’s valuable to consult with a client regularly on many of these matters to find out more about their business for better targeting of campaigns. This may result in wasted clicks and drives up the cost for you as their client.

Without full access to the AdWords account you sign up without being totally aware where your money is being allocated. Believe it or not you actually risk your money being wasted on Yell’s admin costs! That’s right. We have encountered Yell accounts that had as much as 40% of their budget spend going directly to Yell. 40% of monthly spend when it’s a small campaign that is set up on autopilot is excessive.

All about the sales – and not much else

Yell are a business and like many businesses, sales are vital for success. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. However, running effective Google AdWords campaigns as a service requires bespoke ongoing work to set proper targeting and use features like negative keyword lists to get the client best value for money.

Yell own the account, not you

Even though you’re paying for it – Yell own the AdWords account. They host it and run it themselves. If you want to cut your ties and move to another AdWords consultant, as far as I’m aware you don’t get any of your campaign data to take with you. All the historical data and reports is lost. It is held on to by Yell and not released to you. This data can be valuable to learn from when you test new campaigns.

Answered the ‘yell’ for help – how we saved clients from Yell

We have rescued clients from their poor experience of Yell PPC in the past. In one case we saved a client who was spending around £16,000 on their PPC campaigns with Yell and were able to recover an annual saving of £10,000 from improving the execution of their ad campaigns. We were also able to increase their inbound calls and leads at the same time.

If you have poor experience with Yell or other AdWords service providers, please contact us today and we can discuss how best to help you recover and to take control of your own Google AdWords account.