Fanning the flames of search engine optimisation

The answer, of course, is on page two of Google search results, because no-one will ever look there.  

It is a truth that is all too clear to any business which wants to attract traffic to its website and a whole industry of SEO consultancy has grown on the back of it.  

In Cumbria, one of the exponents of search engine sorcery is Tim Marston, who runs South Lakes SEO, in Kendal.  

Originally from West Cumbria, Tim first came across the power of SEO in his former life as an award-winning and internationally recognised fire juggler.  

"For the earlier parts of my fire performing career, I called myself either a fire performer or a fire juggler. I didn't call myself a fire eater because that wasn't technically what I did,” says Tim.  

"Then I did a show and afterwards someone came up to me and said 'So how long have you been a fire eater?’ 

“I ranked first in search results for fire juggling at that time in the UK. But I realised that most non-industry people called me a fire eater, whether I did it or not. I reoptimised my site for searches for fire eaters and I shot up the rankings. 

“That’s the difference that getting it right makes.” 

This realisation set Tim on the path to becoming an SEO consultant, working with companies all over the country, including well-known names such as Whitakers Chocolates in Skipton. 

He says any business that wants to boost its way up the rankings needs to begin by doing some keyword research. 

"Keyword research is the process of finding out the words and phrases that people put into Google when they are looking for the product, service or information that you are trying to put in front of them," says Tim. 

“It’s the most fundamental part of SEO.” 

Tim says businesses need to think about how the language they use may compare to the words lay people are typing in to search for their products and services. 

"There's two traps,” he says.  

“One is industry terminology that people outside the industry don't use and the other is your personal or collective company lexicon. You need to put this aside and think about what other people say in day-to-day life.” 

Then, you have to try and incorporate the correct keywords and phrases into your website, alongside ensuring your site is operating well, is easy to navigate and does not have any broken links or pages. 

Pages should be well structured with clear headings and subheadings and keywords within the body text and also within the alternative tags for images. 

"There's certain places where you definitely want the keywords; the URL, the header, the SEO title and ideally in a file name in an image, because sometimes images show in the search,” says Tim. 

"Then you should just write naturally and then maybe add a heading once at the end to show Google it’s a nice, tight, relevant piece of content.” 

Other tips include using original images where possible, single sentence paragraphs for ease of reading and including a brief overview of the content at the start to engage people early on.  

While adding regular relevant content to your website is helpful, Tim says this is only the case if it is done with a purpose in mind.  

"You shouldn't just publish for the sake of it, there should always be a purpose, to either give good information that might be useful to your readers, to share on an email list, share via social media or to rank for a specific topic,” he says. 

“If you are going to write about something then you should always find a keyword to fit in. Why wouldn’t you?” 

Real SEO gold dust comes in the form of backlinks to your website from other sources, especially if Google considers them to be trustworthy and authoritative. 

Links that come from third party sites which are relevant to the subject matter on your own garner more authority, as well as from those that have large amounts of traffic themselves.  

“If you write an awesome piece of content and other people pick it up and link to it then that’s really helpful,” says Tim. 

Backlinks from social media posts do have a value, although this varies depending on whether it is in a post, or a repost.  

“None of it hurts but contextual links from websites are better,” says Tim. 

The online marketing industry surged during the pandemic when so many businesses moved to ecommerce and Tim says interest has hardly abated since.  

 "Things slowed down a little bit when the cost of living really exploded and when we hit double digit inflation, but luckily plenty of businesses still seem to be able to spend money on marketing,” he says. 

"SEO has the potential to offer really high levels of return on investment because once you rank it doesn't cost any more to rewrite whereas if you buy in paid traffic each click costs money. So as people were looking for higher levels of ROI they moved to SEO." 

As search engine algorithms change at least daily, consultants like Tim are constantly working to keep up with new developments.  

He is also keenly aware of the way AI chatbots - similar to the much-discussed ChatGPT - may change the way that searches and search results are presented.  

“I’m always on the lookout for new clients but I am picky about who I work with and I expect them to be picky as well,” he says.  

“I like to work with people where it’s a really good fit and you can become embedded with them over a long period so you’re really like a team member rather than a consultant. I think that’s when it works best for everyone.” 

To find out more go to www.southlakesseo.co.uk