Website migration, the process of moving a website from one platform to another, can be a complex undertaking. However, with careful planning and execution, it can be a smooth transition. This guide will provide you with best practices, planning ideas, and comprehensive checklists for SEO specialists to ensure a successful migration.
Before Migration SEO Checklist
Prioritize:
URL Structure:
Ensure a logical and consistent URL structure.
Avoid dynamic URLs and use static URLs whenever possible.
Implement 301 redirects for any changed URLs.
Keyword Research and Optimization:
Identify and prioritize target keywords.
Optimize title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags.
Ensure keyword density is appropriate and natural.
XML Sitemap:
Create and submit an XML sitemap to search engines.
Keep it updated with any changes to your website’s structure.
Other Considerations:
Google Analytics:
Set up Google Analytics to track website traffic and user behavior.
Ensure proper tracking is in place before the migration.
Google Search Console:
Verify ownership of your website in Google Search Console.
Submit your XML sitemap and request indexing.
Image Optimization:
Compress images to improve website load speed.
Use descriptive file names and alt text for images.
During Migration SEO Checklist
Prioritize:
301 Redirects:
Implement 301 redirects for all old URLs to their new equivalents.
Test these redirects thoroughly to ensure they work correctly.
Other Considerations:
Robots.txt:
Review and update your robots.txt file to ensure proper crawling and indexing.
Avoid blocking important pages from search engines.
Mobile-Friendliness:
Ensure your website is mobile-friendly and responsive.
Test your website on different devices and screen sizes.
After Migration SEO Checklist
Prioritize:
Indexation Check:
Monitor Google Search Console for indexing issues.
Submit your website to Google Search Console for re-indexing.
Rank Tracking:
Track your website’s rankings for target keywords.
Check for any broken links or redirects that may impact your backlink profile.
Use tools like Ahrefs or Moz to monitor your backlink profile.
User Experience:
Ensure your website loads quickly and has a positive user experience.
Test your website’s navigation, content, and overall design.
Local SEO:
If applicable, optimize your website for local search.
Claim your Google My Business listing and keep it updated.
By prioritizing these tasks and following this checklist, you can minimize the impact of your website migration on your SEO and ensure a smooth transition.
In today’s dynamic digital arena, establishing a robust online presence is indispensable for any business striving for success. For enterprises operating in specific geographical areas like Manchester, UK, harnessing the power of Local SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) strategies is paramount. Local SEO empowers businesses to forge connections with their target audience within a specific location, driving foot traffic and conversions. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll delve into the intricacies of Local SEO and explore effective strategies tailored for businesses in Manchester.
Understanding Local SEO
Before delving into tactics, it’s crucial to grasp the essence of Local SEO. Unlike traditional SEO, which focuses on enhancing a website’s visibility on a global scale, Local SEO zooms in on optimising online presence for local searches. This involves tailoring strategies to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) when users search for products or services within a particular geographic location, such as Manchester.
Importance of Local SEO for Manchester Businesses
Manchester, a vibrant city renowned for its rich history, cultural diversity, and thriving business landscape, presents immense opportunities for entrepreneurs. However, amidst fierce competition, standing out in Manchester’s market can be daunting. This is where Local SEO plays a pivotal role. By strategically implementing Local SEO tactics, businesses in Manchester can:
1. Enhance Visibility in Local Searches
Local SEO enables businesses to appear prominently in local search results, ensuring that they are visible to potential customers in Manchester actively seeking their products or services. For instance, a Manchester-based coffee shop can leverage Local SEO to appear at the top of search results when users search for “best coffee shops in Manchester.”
2. Build Trust and Credibility
A strong Local SEO presence not only boosts visibility but also enhances trust and credibility among local consumers. When a business consistently appears in local search results and maintains accurate business information, such as contact details and operating hours, it instils confidence in potential customers, leading to higher engagement and conversions.
3. Drive Foot Traffic and Conversions
By optimising for local searches, businesses can attract nearby customers who are more likely to visit their physical locations. For instance, a boutique clothing store in Manchester can use Local SEO to drive foot traffic by appearing in searches like “boutiques near me” or “fashion stores in Manchester,” ultimately leading to increased sales and revenue.
Effective Local SEO Strategies for Manchester Businesses
Now that we’ve underscored the significance of Local SEO, let’s explore some actionable strategies tailored for businesses in Manchester:
1. Optimise Google My Business (GMB) Listing
Google My Business is a powerful tool for local businesses to manage their online presence. Manchester-based businesses should claim and optimise their GMB listing by providing accurate information, such as business name, address, phone number (NAP), and operating hours. Additionally, businesses can enhance their listing by adding high-quality photos, responding to customer reviews, and regularly updating posts and offers.
2. Localise Website Content
To improve visibility in local searches, businesses should localise their website content by including Manchester-specific keywords and location-based information. This includes mentioning the city name, neighbourhoods, landmarks, and relevant local events or attractions within website content, meta descriptions, and title tags. By aligning website content with local search intent, businesses can better connect with Manchester’s audience and improve their search rankings.
3. Earn Local Citations and Backlinks
Citations, which are mentions of a business’s NAP information on external websites, and backlinks, which are links from other websites to your site, are crucial components of Local SEO. Manchester businesses should strive to earn local citations from reputable directories, such as Yell, Yelp, and Thomson Local, as well as local news publications and industry-specific websites. Additionally, businesses can outreach to local influencers, bloggers, and community organisations to earn valuable backlinks, thereby boosting their authority and credibility in Manchester’s digital ecosystem.
4. Encourage Customer Reviews and Engagement
Positive customer reviews not only influence purchasing decisions but also signal trustworthiness to search engines. Manchester businesses should actively encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews on platforms like Google, Facebook, and TripAdvisor.
Google Review Sign with QR Code in Manchester Cafe – Available via 224
Additionally, engaging with customer reviews, whether positive or negative, demonstrates responsiveness and authenticity, further enhancing the business’s reputation and visibility in Manchester.
The above photo shows at POS Review opportunity with both a QR code and NFC director, making it quick and easy for customers upon service to leave your business a glowing review. This was found at Popup Bikes Repair Shop & Cafe in Manchester and is available at a low cost via 224, it has already netted 15 in the past 2 months since being installed which is huge increase on the 1 or 2 every few months they had previously!
5. Leverage Local Structured Data Markup
Implementing local structured data markup on your website can help search engines understand your business’s location and relevant information. Businesses in Manchester should utilise schema markup to mark up their NAP details, business hours, reviews, and other relevant data. This enables search engines to display rich snippets, such as business hours and customer ratings, in search results, improving visibility and attracting more clicks from local users.
What This Means For Your Business!
Local SEO offers a myriad of opportunities for businesses in Manchester to enhance their online visibility, attract local customers, and drive business growth. By implementing targeted Local SEO strategies, such as optimising Google My Business listings, localising website content, earning citations and backlinks, encouraging customer reviews, and leveraging structured data markup, Manchester businesses can effectively navigate the competitive digital landscape and establish a strong foothold in their local market.
Embracing Local SEO isn’t just about ranking higher in search results; it’s about forging meaningful connections with the vibrant community of Manchester and fostering long-term success for your business.
In that article, I talk about using SEMRush and Ahrefs as part of your SEO Toolbelt to discover these keywords, but you can also use them to discover keywords that will enhance your content all round and ensure your content generally ranks better from the start – and not just for non-competitive terms.
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To help with this question, one which I get asked by many clients – “how do i find good keywords?”
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I created a short tutorial video using SEMRush. You can follow along step by step and to do so you will need an account, but you can sign up for a free trial (don’t worry you can cancel anytime!) Use THIS LINK to get your trial today.
All these learnings are applicable to any keyword system, they all give you the same type of information from global search volume to local search volume and competitive level / difficulty. This guide will steer you through how to make the choices for your content.
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Disclaimer: Some links in this article are affiliate links, these help content on this website, blog, podcast to remain free. These cost you nothing, they ensure content can continue in production and continue to improve. By signing up for a trial, or buying a product or service – we get a small % or small £ back each time. It’s similar to advertising but we only link to affiliates we know and trust. Adverts are based on your browsing history (in general).
In the past almost 20 years since seoandy.com (and in its various guises) has existed, we’ve always aimed to educate as much as we have service clients – and the world as a whole.
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This means we’ve written well over 1000 articles, both for this website and across other platforms, as well as many guest authors. In 2022, we launched The SEO Podcast – now in Season 2, the weekly marketing podcast continues the work of our numerous articles in educating in all digital marketing areas.
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The ebook we’ve written is a starter guide for beginners, website and business owners. It is a no-jargon look at the fundamentals of SEO, including keyword research, on-page optimization, technical SEO, and link building.
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It starts by discussing the basics of SEO and how search engines work. Then, dives into keyword research, the process of identifying the words and phrases your target audience is searching for. Understanding the keywords and phrases relevant to your business can optimize your website’s content to rank for those terms.
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Next, the beginner’s SEO guide covers on-page optimisation. This includes techniques for improving your website’s content, structure, and design to make it more attractive to search engines. We’ll discuss title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and more. Finally, in this section, the ebook covers the importance of creating high-quality, unique content to help your website rank for specific keywords.
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Whether you’re a small business owner or a marketing professional, this book will provide you with the knowledge and skills you need to boost your website’s visibility and drive more traffic to your site. We’ve written it in an easy to understand, beginner-friendly language, so that anyone can understand and apply the concepts discussed in the book, no prior knowledge of SEO is required.
Business owners around the world often think that a domain is just an address for their website, they think they can pick anything and it won’t matter because it will work out well for them. But a domain is so much more than just an address.n
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A domain is the first thing your potential customers see.n
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A domain is on all of your business cards, it’s on all of your social media, it’s on all of your business emails and it’s how people will remember you.n
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Here are my 7 tips for picking a top-notch domain for your business, whether it’s a start-up, a rebrand or you are growing. You’ll be able to nail a great domain with the help of these 7 tips.
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Be a Brand
As I mentioned above, your domain is the face of your business. So brand it up.n
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Whether its a personal brand, like mine (SEOAndy.com — a name) or a large business like google which owns domains like blog.google too, or obviously smaller companies or organizations make it branded and memorable.n
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Keep it short too is usually the keep.
Don’t Be Tempted to Shorten Everything
Words such as science don’t always fit with being shortened, sure with science-fiction to sci-fi it fits well but if your brand is planetscience.com I assure you no one will remember planetsci.com — the same goes for a bunch of other similar words. A few extra characters never bothered anyone, yes there is a balance but perhaps the balance here is not having too many words and not putting hyphens in your domain.n
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The second thing I would say is if your brand/domain is multi-worded, cut it down to just a few characters. Think WWF uses wwf.org.uk and Charities Aid Foundation uses CAFonline.org — short is better in these cases.
Go Top-Level
Having a TLD is like the gold standard for domains, go for it. I would say if you can get the .co.uk and .org.uk type domains to for the country-level too to match up just to keep your brand locally, but if you can’t get the TLD your brand is likely already on the dodgy territory. (in the first instance check to see what’s on that domain, you may be about to have a copyright battle!)n
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The majority of all sites use .com as their domain, and you can always forward other domains you buy to it.
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Avoid Copyright Terms
Speaking of copyright above, avoid any copyright or trademark issues — don’t go for branded terms that are obvious. Don’t say “googleiscrap.com” in your domain or anything stupid, don’t even use a brand in praise in a domain — you are on dodgy territory.
Use Keywords
Before nipping to your favorite domain registrar, I use Hover, to brainstorm some ideas using 3 or 4 keywords to summarize your business. (On hover if you enter one or two words it will shoot out domains that may match your thoughts, see below for the words SEO and News — additionally hover have a huge range of domains available that can’t be found elsewhere I’ve found, such as .ltd)
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Mix and match, see what makes sense and what doesn’t — cut the crap out yourself, and then ask a friend or two to help you.n
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Pro-tip: Don’t use any complex words or difficult-to-spell words, if it’s not memorable, easy to type or you use long words, no one will ever just type it in… even from your business card, never mind their memory.
Ignore Current Fads / Trends
Don’t fall for fads and trends such as missing I’s from your domain because ‘it looks cool’ — it will just look silly in a few months when you try and buy it with an I and you find it doesn’t exist or the brand with the I is already in your sector … and you have to rebrand… be very careful with your domains and picking them on a fad.
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Stuck for a word? Use a Thesaurus
One of the best tips I picked up from a friend was when looking for domains always pick up a thesaurus, and see what other related words there are, what similar words describe the same thing and whether I can say the same thing with fewer words. It’s always just worth a flip through for a random idea too!
What do you really need to do in order to grow your sales through eBay stores this Festive Season?
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As an SEO Agency, we work to increase sales for online businesses. Part of our role is to ensure that those selling, either via their own website or by a third-party such as eBay, get the biggest number of conversions possible.
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The majority of the helpful tips below can be used across any selling platform, though a few of them are eBay-specific.
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How to increase your eBay Conversion Rate
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Research Your CompetitorsnWhether you and your business have listed on eBay before, or on another platform, it is important to perform lots of searches “as a buyer” before you start listing your products.nnLook at everything from the obvious; Title, Price, Postage Cost and Description — to the items which are probably less scrutinised by sellers but all products really look at; Product Images / Gallery, Terms and Conditions, Number of Products Available and Seller History.nnThis research means you will be able to see whether their strategies are working (if they’ve good ratings and it looks professional etc) and potentially what their strategies are (are they going for a lower price to sell more or a higher price to increase the margin). In addition to this looking at what the product titles are and the product descriptions and layout you can begin to build a picture of what success looks like on eBay for your specific niche market.n
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Take High-Quality PhotosnA simple and high-quality photo with your product can make you stand ‘head and shoulders above your competition. Photography is extremely important with platforms such as eBay and Amazon because once a user has searched and results are shown, their eyes are drawn to the photos — if you can show professionalism and quality, you are more likely to get that click. nnHere are a few tips for getting the best photography for your products:na. use a good quality camera (not your mobile)nb. use natural daylight where possible (artificial light can be too harsh)nc. take a number of photos (various angles and close-ups)nd. NEVER use a manufacturer’s / commercial image.n
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Create A Great Product TitlenYou have only 80 characters on eBay for your product title, this means you can’t describe your product in full (usually). So instead you need to keep it concise but detailed, you need to include relevant keywords such as Brand, Colour and Size (if you are selling clothing, for example).nnA top tip is that if you have some spare space to deal with in your title tag then you can begin to include descriptive keywords such as “beautiful” and “ideal for ABC” — but your specific detail should always come first when writing an eBay Product Title.n
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Write the Perfect Product DescriptionnDescribing your product is the key to giving your customer that extra bit of confidence they may need to buy with you, over another seller on eBay. The vital thing here is to be honest in describing the product, don’t oversell on underselling — just describe the product in literal terms, use good grammar and double-check your spelling, and don’t simply copy and paste from anywhere (including your own website).nnA great tip, which we tell all eBay customers, is that if you are selling two very similar products (say the same dress in a few colours or a number of plants in different colours) that the majority of the description can be the same, it saves time and is already well written, but you should always have at least 300 characters of unique description for each product listing. This makes a huge difference both to the buyers and potentially to search engines, who really don’t want to see duplicate content.n
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Always Consider the AudiencenIn all of the above you have considered what you want to achieve, but you should also always be considering what the audience is looking for. If you are selling plants, then your audience may want to know extra information such as where the plant will thrive, soil type, when it will bloom or fruit etc — these are all things to put into your description, not simply “ABC is a B-type and is green”. nnThe big tip is to always think as “assumed knowledge” isn’t actually true, you should never assume when selling online. This is the same idea with your photography, if you are selling something tacky then you may cover your photo in a sign saying “50% off” but if you are trying to attract a better audience who are willing to pay that little more and increase your revenue, don’t put text on your photos. (I admit though a logo on your images is a good idea as a watermark).
