Our SEO blog posts.

Yellowball are looking for a seriously talented and experienced SEO Account Manager to join our fast-growing team. Who are we? Yellowball is a multi award-winning digital marketing agency specialising in web, SEO, PPC, video and design, partnering with brands and businesses of every shape and size across the UK. With passion, creativity and razor-sharp commercial focus wired into everything we do, we’re trusted by organisations everywhere to deliver real impact and results. We love what we do and deliver a great, ROI-focussed service. As

Updating your website so that it doesn’t start looking dated or off-brand doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to undertake a site migration. In general, that’s pretty good news because it won’t affect all the hard work you put into Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). But when you do need to migrate, a careful SEO site migration process can help you to retain those precious search engine rankings. 

It’s not a mistake to think that keywords and content are important to your search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy, but technical SEO matters too. So, what is technical SEO and just how “technical” can it be? Like so many other things in life, it’s easy when you know how, so let’s go through some of the basics you’ll need to cover to perfect your SEO strategy. 

You did your homework, crafted an SEO strategy, and got to work creating content that you hoped would take the world by storm - or at least, make an impression. But then, your posts and pages underperformed. What should you do? 

Digital or online marketing promotes brands using the internet and online communication platforms. But the heart of any digital marketing campaign is the website it draws attention to. What if you could attract visitors to your website without paid social media posts, email campaigns that only reach your existing contacts, or costly web-based advertising? 

Ecommerce SEO consists of a set of techniques that are used to improve your ecommerce website’s search engine rankings. When people search online for products or services like yours, they’ll usually only pay attention to the results that appear on the first page of search engine results. Since you want to get traffic to your website where you can pull out all the stops to make sales, getting that page one ranking will be among your priorities. SEO gets you there. Looking for some ecommerce SEO tips? You’ve come to the right place. Let’

You have a website, but unless search engines display it near the top of their rankings for key terms, most people will never find it. Of course, you could pay for your moment in the limelight, but most people trust organic rankings more, and to get them, you need an SEO content strategy.

You already know that search engine optimisation (SEO) helps your website to stand out from the crowd in search engine results. But which keywords should you target? Without good SEO keyword research, you’re taking a shot in the dark. You might target keywords that nobody uses in search, or you could err in the other direction and choose keywords for which there is so much competition that you don’t stand much chance of ranking for them. In this article, we’ll look at how to choose keywords for SEO so that you can power your website to s

New to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)? The term “SEO keywords” is sure to be among the first concepts you encounter. Knowing what keywords do, choosing the right ones to use, and sticking to your keyword strategy will help you to improve your website’s rankings in search engine results. It’s quite a complex area, but this introduction to SEO keywords will help you to get started. 

Although old-fashioned marketing methods like print advertising still have their place, most businesses are finding that they get far more bang for their marketing buck by applying online marketing techniques. An SEO marketing strategy can pay off in a big way, but if you’re new to all of this, or even if you already have some idea of it, you may have a few questions. What is an SEO marketing strategy, and what should it consist of? Let’s get started!

SEO, meaning “Search Engine Optimisation” is a term that everyone who has a website should familiarise themselves with. But how does it work? Here are the basics. Search engines have a job to do. When people enter a query, they must offer relevant results. There may be hundreds or even thousands of results for a single search, so search engines attempt to rank them according to how useful they’ll be. 

If you’ve ever worked in SEO, it’s likely there have been many instances where you’ve felt at the mercy of Google. You’re sure that you’ve done everything right, you’ve gone through Google’s guidelines with a fine toothcomb, and yet it’s almost as if Google takes some kind of sadistic pleasure in confining your website to the darkest corners of its search results.   Let us start by clarifying something: Google wants you to succeed, providing that you put in the work. This can be seen in how it makes the inner workings of it

Depending on the size of your website, the type of SEO audit, and whether you choose a professional or DIY site audit, your costs for an SEO audit can range from the cost of the resources you allocate to the project to several thousand pounds. At Yellowball, we keep the costs of an SEO audit as reasonable as possible for our clients because we know how essential this service is to the overall success of your paid SEO services and strategy. In this article, we’ll look at the different types of SEO audit services, what the audits involve, why t

Content is a crucial aspect of any SEO strategy and has been for quite some time, and it would be remiss to talk about content without addressing thin content. Ever since the Panda Update, the purpose of content has been providing an enriching and informative user experience rather than simply appeasing search engines. As will be explored throughout this article, content does not exist simply as a vehicle for keywords or a means to fill up space – to bulk up a website and make it look substantial. As we always say: bigger is not better…

The key to driving relevant organic traffic is understanding ‘search intent’. This means getting to grips with exactly what kind of problem the user is trying to solve. As well as this, brands must account for the ways the search engine landscape is changing. Ben Gomes, SVP of search engineering at Google, outlined in 2018 that there would be three fundamental shifts to the way we interact with search engines: From answers to journeys – problem solving is now about providing an experience, rather than simply answering a question. A

In an ideal world companies wouldn’t have to worry about link building. Perfect search engines with perfect algorithms would precisely rank content for every imaginable search. These infallibly indexed web pages would gain links naturally from other websites and we’d all sleep better at night knowing that link earning was taking care of everything.   Unfortunately, this image of search utopia is not currently how things work (well, for the vast majority of websites anyway). As everyone in the SEO world is all too familiar, not all webs

It’s a well-worn trope. You step onto the underground and everyone is staring at their phones, transfixed. Phone screens are demanding our attention more than ever and Google knows it. In response, the search engine giant will begin to  prioritise mobile-first indexing for all sites from September this year, meaning that the mobile version of your site will be more important than ever. This appears to be one of the final steps for Google switching entirely to a mobile-first index. What’s this got to do with content? Well, if you haven’t

Last week we saw a strong and often adverse reaction from the SEO community with regards to a video published by Google themselves on 26th February. The video was titled “Tips for hiring an SEO specialist”. It all centres around their 3rd tip: to get a free technical audit before making your decision and was highlighted by Danny Sullivan on Twitter. Our initial reaction was somewhat similar to others. Full audits take a considerable amount of time and as such, any free audit is likely to be automated and of no real value. Then we started in

Page speed is a hot topic for SEO in 2020. The speed of a webpage (or a whole site, for that matter) plays a significant role in conversion rates. In fact, 40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load, and a 1-second delay in a page’s response reduces conversions by 7%. And page speed’s role is only going to increase. So, shaving a few milliseconds here and there off of your load time can have profound effects on your business. One method for improving page speed is lazy-loading.  What is lazy-loading? Lazy-load

In 2020, SEO is vital to businesses looking to reach their audience online. Thinking about investing in SEO? Get the ball rolling by asking yourself these questions:Is your website your main source of revenue?  Do you offer something unique within a crowded market?  Are you trying to increase visits to your brick-and-mortar store?  Are you struggling to get results using ‘traditional’ marketing channels?If the answer to any of the above is yes, you’ve got a real chance of succeeding with SEO, providing you do it well. As an SEO age

This blog is the second in a three-part series about outdated SEO tactics that you should avoid. Here, we’ll focus on content and other aspects of on-site SEO. You can read part one here, which details some common misconceptions about keyword research that people still abide, and part three will look at old link building tactics. Get ready to un-learn some archaic SEO!  In our previous edition of Archaic SEO, we looked at some outdated concepts and tactics that still plague the use of keywords. Hopefully (if we are doing our jobs well

  This blog is the first in a three-part series about outdated SEO tactics that should be avoided. Here, we’ll focus on the use of keywords. Part two looks at outdated concepts in the world of content, while part three concerns link building. Get ready to un-learn some archaic SEO!  In the world of SEO, applying outdated tactics or operating on the basis of disproven concepts could potentially be damaging, if not fatal for the online presence of a business. Google are constantly fighting against sneaky strategies that aim to manip

If you think this sounds a little random, it is. The idea was sparked by a random conversation with a complete stranger in the depths of Soho. After explaining what Yellowball did, the person in question asked whether her Reddit presence would be beneficial to SEO. Some questioning and a quick Google was followed by a, “I’m actually going to have to look into that because on the face of it I would say no…..but Reddit is huge so there may be something in it”. I originally wanted this article to be purely related to the potential SEO bene

If there is any topic that’s going to put fire in the bellies of SEOs far and wide, it’s Black Hat Vs. White Hat SEO. Whether you’re a seasoned SEO or just starting, the importance of understanding the implications and techniques of either approach cannot be overstated. We’re going to take a look at the differences between White Hat and Black Hat SEO, the techniques you’ll want to adopt and the ones you’ll want to drop like a hot potato. With the additional help of our handy blog and glossary, you’ll be soaring to the dizzying hei

Every company, regardless of their industry or size, will need to perform a site audit on its website at least once in it’s lifetime. You’d be amazed how quickly websites become dated and fall out of pace with the latest best practices in website design, user experience and search performance. A site audit helps to ensure that your site is working at its optimum. Different digital marketing agencies have different ideas of how frequently you should be undertaking a site audit. Really, it varies from site to site. For smaller website

It’s not an understatement to say that Apple App Store and Google Play are two of the most important marketplaces in the world. There are around 1.83 million apps on the Apple App Store and over 2 million apps on Google Play Store with 5.11 billion mobile users in the world using these apps. Not only are apps on the increase in terms of number and users, they are also quickly increasing into a highly profitable revenue source. In 2018, the global mobile app revenues amounted to over $365 billion US dollars, forecasted to increase to $935 bill

As SEOs, it’s our goal to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to improve your website’s rankings and get it seen by the right people at the right time. It’s also our responsibility to make sure that we’re doing so in the most ethical and effective ways possible. This means abiding by the guidelines set out by Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. The basic principles outlined in these guidelines are: Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users. Avoid tricks intended to improve search e

Video marketing has been increasing in popularity ever since YouTube started to rise to fame. Optimising your YouTube channel and videos as part of your digital marketing strategy is key to ensuring the success and ROI of these marketing tools. However, knowing where to begin is not always easy. If you use our simple guide to YouTube Optimisation, you’ll be shooting to the dizzying heights of the YouTube search pages in no time! Conduct Keyword Research Before doing anything else, the top priority for YouTube SEO is keyword research. There ar

QUESTIONS How much experience do you have? Determining how much experience your new SEO agency has is a key factor in deciding whether or not to hire them. Whilst everyone has to start somewhere if the person/team running your SEO has minimal experience in SEO, previous employment or otherwise, it simply does not bode well for the success of your campaign. How do you measure the success of a campaign? Any SEO agency worth their salt should have appropriate and effective KPIs in place to ensure that your campaign is on the right track. For examp

Before you get too deep into this article, we advise you to first read our post on whether featured snippets are worth it for SEO, if you haven’t already. It sets the scene for the items we’ll be covering here, providing some background before we get into the more juicy ‘how-tos’ of this post. We’ll be expanding on how to identify the correct snippets to go after, as well as providing some tips on how to structure your content in order to get yourself featured. Why should you target featured snippets? Over the last 10 years, Google ha

What is this new button? Google has added a new feature – the “Request a Quote” button. This button enables searchers to directly request a quote for your services, directly from the SERPs. It’s there to be more seamless, reduce friction between users searching for your business, and answers the no.1 question – “What will cost?”. So, what does this button mean for your SEO, and how do you get it? How do I get Google’s request a quote button? The only way to get the feature is to turn on the messaging feature in Google My

There has been great outcry from industries that are seemingly under attack from the Big G. The search engine is constantly improving their service for searchers, offering flight comparison, job boards, books and more. This is all well and good for the users that make up 3.5 billion searches a day. However, it can be detrimental for platforms that have built their businesses on providing this service. But are Google really stealing traffic from publishers? As we discussed in our post on featured snippets, Google claim to be conscious of their p

Once upon a time, SEO was solely focussed on getting to that number one position for high value search terms. The SERPs were linear and the goal was clear. To an extent this is still the case. Ranking at the top of the SERPs for your most prominent keywords can be incredibly lucrative. However, the SERPs are continually growing in complexity. Our analytics capabilities are getting stronger and stronger. Even the way in which we use search engines has changed dramatically. Remember this clip from College Humor? Notice anything different? We now

Maybe you have one website and all your content is in English, but you’ve realised that you have a lot of customers visiting your site from China. Or maybe you are expanding your services beyond your native country’s borders, and want to target English-speakers worldwide, and not just in England or America. When you are looking to implement SEO for a multi-language website, you’ll need to look into language targeting.  Language targeting is when you market your services or products towards users across the globe who all speak the same la

You’ve made the decision. You’ve started looking beyond your own borders and want to start selling your service or products to customers abroad as well as domestically. But how do you get your website ready for international expansion, and how do you make sure it’s SEO optimised for targeting users in multiple countries? When it comes to implementing country-specific SEO, country targeting is the best option available to you. Country targeting is when you market your services and products specifically towards audiences in more than one co

Expanding into new markets is a thrilling time for any business, but it can also be a risky one. You’re moving up in the world, moving into new, uncharted markets (at least by you) and are eager to make the most out of the exciting opportunities that they offer. However, there’s also the risk that it won’t pan out. When you decide that you want go international with your website, it’s an all or nothing scenario. You can’t dip your toe in the water when it comes to making changes to your website to best target your new audiences. Y

Investing the time, energy and resources into a beautiful website without also investing in SEO, is like buying a new car and not buying petrol. It’ll sit on your driveway looking pretty, but it’s not going to get you anywhere. However, entering the world of SEO, how it works, and trying to make a decision about the best route forward for you and your business can seem like a mind-boggling task. We’ve taken stock of what’s out there and the different SEO solutions that are available. We’ve put together a comprehensive, transparent pro

Let’s get one thing straight. The Yoast SEO plug-in is one of, if not the most popular SEO plugin for WordPress websites. It’s been around since 2008. It has over 5 million installations and at the time of writing, a 4.9 out of 5 rating from over 26,000 reviews on WordPress.org. It’s really useful. We use it at Yellowball on a lot of our clients’ websites. The plugin allows webmasters to update meta data with consummate ease. We’d highly recommend using it! However, there are some common misconceptions around Yoast’s SEO and readabi

The concept of performance based SEO campaigns is simple. Formerly known as ‘Pay for Rankings’ campaigns, they’re based upon the agency being paid only as and when they deliver results (or a substantial amount of monthly fees withheld until results are produced). Awesome! If agencies are so confident in their SEO abilities, surely they would be happy to put their money where their mouths are? On the surface of it, yes. It looks great and believe me, as an agency, if we could make it work it would make our lives a hell of a lot easier when

Reviewing our SEO predictions of 2018 At the end of each year, it’s become somewhat of a tradition for agencies to compile their SEO predictions for the following year. Back in January, we thought we’d look ahead as well! However, not many of these websites actually look into how accurate their predictions turned out to be. Considering the year is now coming to end, we thought it would be a good idea to see how well our SEO predictions played out throughout 2018. Continued rise of AI 2018 saw Google make some serious advancements in art

When we think of Google and how it can impact our businesses, or our clients’ bottom line, two main areas come to mind: AdWords and SEO. AdWords being Google’s ads that dominate the top spots and represent their cha-ching machine, while SEO is the process of optimising your website and content to increase organic rankings naturally, over time (as you are probably totally aware of). AdWords is hugely popular, first and foremost because it is instant; once set up, your ads (and website) are on Google’s first pages. Secondly, it’s tang

Understanding how SEO works is meaningless if you do not also understand if it’s working. Marketers and businesses should always pay close attention to the effects of their SEO work in order to perfect their approach and drive valuable results. This is where metrics come in. Yes, they may seem boring at first, kind of like Times New Roman or Morrissey fans. But trust us, SEO reporting metrics are your friends. They help us understand the impact of our efforts. But how exactly should you go about effectively measuring the success of an SEO cam

At its core, SEO is the practice of increasing a website’s ability to rank at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs) for a set of target keywords, also known as ‘search terms’. In turn, this results in increased traffic to a website from search engines. There are no underhand tricks, it does not involve arcane magic or entry into a cult. Sure, granular details can get a little heavy, especially on the technical side, but we believe the core theories of search engine optimisation are easy to understand. If you only remember two

It happens all the time. You have a task that you know is going to involve something reasonably arduous. The difficulty can manifest itself in multiple forms whether that be some hard work, an investment of time or money or even just require a devotion of brain power. Your tasks may not even be that arduous, there might just be a lot of them. Whatever the reason is, the entirety of the task appears too daunting to even start. Too much to do, too complex, too little time, costs too much….all seemingly viable reasons. We see this all the time.

So you want to learn about this thing called ‘Search Engine Optimisation’… We know, it’s daunting, it’s confusing, there’s so much to learn, and there’s all sorts of SEO specific terminology. Luckily for you, we live in the age of the internet: almost anything can be self-taught using the wealth of free resources available online. But with so much available on the web, how do you even get started without getting headaches from the information overload? We’ve done some of the legwork for you by pooling together a handy list o

The layman would be forgiven for thinking that marketing was all celebrity endorsements and outrageous give away competitions. Sure there are areas of the marketing industry that capitalise on stratospheric budgets, but for those of us that aren’t on first name terms with messers Dicaprio and Pitt, we have to choose the most effective marketing channel for our clients’ needs. Disclaimer: many of us at Yellowball have devoted a lot of time to becoming experts in the world of search engine optimisation so we hold our hands up…we are pro

By its very nature, search engine optimisation is about increasing your website’s ability to rank for given search terms, which in turn should result in more conversions from the search engine results pages (SERPs). No wonder then that for a long time the primary focus of SEO campaigns has been on getting people to rank higher for their ‘target keywords’. The problem is that a blinkered focus on keyword rankings, especially if it is on a handful of ‘money keywords’ is a not a true measure of success. It can also lead you into some fun

Does Google take into account how people interact with your site when deciding to rank your website in their search results? A subject somewhat shrouded in mystery and confusing literature – leaving people unsure as to whether user and usage data is a ranking factor for SEO. Regardless of whether you read the evidence we have gathered below, along with some more speculative theories…improving user experience and flow through your website should be important to you regardless of whether or not it has an effect on SEO. Concentrating o

The confusing world of undefined metrics The SEO world has traditionally been thought of as the darker corners of the marketing ecosystem, full of hard ‘dark arts’ and terminology. Sure it takes a little time to get your head around all of the various factors involved and the terminology can be overwhelming but at Yellowball we love to provide clarity on the subject. So here we are again, this time looking at the overarching SEO metrics available to you. Which ones are important, which ones are redundant and should you pay attention to them

Impressions, clicks, CTR, queries, position, bounce rate, time on page. These are just a few examples of the overarching data that you can derive from Google Analytics and Google’s Search Console (formerly known as Webmaster Tools). It can all get rather confusing, especially when they all have their own merits for understanding the success of an SEO campaign. We wanted to deep dive into how you can improve your website’s appearance in search, therefore improving click-through rates from search engine results pages. High CTR = More Traffic

The old adage of ‘you get what you pay for’ rings true for the majority of industries and SEO is certainly no different. There are a multitude of companies and lone wolves offering cheap SEO services with grand promises of first page rankings and fast. In reality, the only way to achieve such a promise is by employing suspect black-hat techniques, which can land you in big trouble with the Overlord Google. With cheap SEO your risk profile for penalties and ultimately ending up in a worse position than when you started increases substantiall

You may have noticed (well, we hope you have!) that we recently launched our shiny new website. We are absolutely delighted with the result and the response it has gained so far. Nevertheless, it has not been without its stresses and it is easy to underestimate the scale of such a task.The launch of a website is far more intricate than a beautiful new look and cool new features - there are a whole myriad of elements and issues to consider. As SEO experts, we also understand the importance of transferring any previous ranking authority over

I’ve spoken to many companies on this topic over the years, and it is the ones that have gained a clear understanding of how, why and where to collect data on their customers and prospects, that have become highly successful. The general opinion is that no lead-generating marketing campaign can be successful without high quality data. So, I thought I’d share with you what I felt seemed to be a consensus amongst all these data conscious businesses. Let’s start off with the how… All businesses should use a CRM (client relationship ma

At Yellowball we have seen direct results from the email marketing campaigns that we have managed for ourselves and for our clients. Email still represents a platform on which we spend a considerable amount of time, especially during working hours.  Combine this with smartphones and email marketing can be an incredibly effective strategy. Here are our top 6 tips to running a successful campaign: 1. Utilise the gatekeeper Let’s face it, opening emails that are obviously sent out en masse is not particularly high on our daily ‘to do’ list.

Search Engine Optimisation can be a tricky business at the best of times. With over 200 factors to take into account it is all too easy to get distracted and miss out a few crucial first steps. The result? You can spend weeks, if not months, working on your site only to gain no more visibility on the search engines than you did previously. Fear not though, not only will a lot of your efforts be beneficial in the long run (except for the in the case of the last point in this article), but we at Yellowball have put together a list of easy-to-make