SEO for Beginners

SEO for beginners. We're going to go through really the best way to get started with SEO. I think it can be a topic that's really overwhelming for many. I'm really delighted to be joined by Matt Jones, who is a technical consultant. Matt, tell me, why does SEO matter so much to an SME?

Hi, Polly. So SEO is one of obviously a multiple kind of range of different marketing efforts that you can have. The difference about SEO is other than the cost of obviously whether you've got a technical consultant or someone doing it in house or even yourself, everything else is free. So it's essentially being able to market your business, get more clicks and then turn them into whether it's leads or purchases, depending on your business, and it's getting them all for free. So it's a much more cost effective way of marketing than some of the channels such as pay per click.

So can I ask the first, just, just, just the first silly question here, Matt? I want to, I want to ask all the questions that often people are too afraid to ask. SEO, what's it actually stand for?

So, yeah, that is definitely a very common question. SEO stands for search Engine optimization. And a lot of people instantly start when you mention SEO. They kind of think about Google itself, but it covers a broad range of search engines. So Google, Bing, people use Go these days as well. So any search engine you can think of, SEO applies to that search engine.

And Matt, why is it important and who needs it? What's the, Is it just E commerce businesses or does it apply to everybody?

Yes, 100%. So anyone who has any form of online presence, so that's a website, whether you, as we say, E commerce and you're selling products or if you just have a website to, you know, drive people to have awareness of your business, maybe you're kind of a local cafe or you might be a restaurant and you want to drive people to actually be aware you exist. SEO is the best way to do that. So essentially when we say who needs it? The quite quick answer is everyone that has a website. And the reason it's important is, as I said, it's one of the only sort of free channels that you can use when it comes to marketing. So say, other than underlying costs of staffing it, everything else is free. And it's become a lot more common in the past few years as well. Obviously we've had certain things go off around the world that have kind of changed things, but a lot of people are realizing, you know, we need to drive people to our websites. We need to drive awareness of us as a business and essentially, yeah, everyone needs it and it can actually be the biggest channel in terms of growing your business from a bottom line.

So I think it means it's. We're going to get sort of just heads up, we're not going to get really technical today, but we're going to just go through the sort of things that really matter. And fundamentally, you know, what this means is that SEO is about being found when somebody types something to Google. And I think the thing that really strikes me about it is window. Google is like the window of the world, isn't it? I mean, there are other search engines do exist, but Google is the biggest. Right. That fair, Matt?

Yeah, yeah, 100%. So I think Google Drives in the region of between 80 and 90% of all searches.

Cool. And I mean, what's interesting here is that you're, you know, as a customer, if I type In B&Bs in Perth, I, I am a qualified customer. I'm looking for a bed and breakfast in Perth, aren't I? And the chat challenges, how do you appear? And that's really what we're going to look at today, Matt. Right?

Yeah, 100%. So it's as we said, it's just making sure when someone does search something that obviously relates to your business, you are at the forefront of those search results and people then obviously know you actually exist. In this case, if you're a BNB and purse, they'll book your bnb.

So can we discuss what keywords are in relation to SEO and what does that mean for my business? How can you turn what sounds like, what are keywords in relation to SEO? That's for somebody that doesn't really know, starting on this journey, that's like, what's that all about? How do we turn that into a really relatable business question?

Yeah, 100%. So essentially, keywords are pretty much the crux of SEO as a whole. A keyword is essentially the easiest way to think about it, is what a user puts into that search engine. So using your prior example, Polly, BNB in Perth, that is a keyword itself. That is what that customer is looking to find. Now, that could be anything. We've all searched a huge array of things across search engines in our life. You know, it's B and Bs, it's where's the nearest cafe or restaurant, right down to, you know, you wanting to buy a new product. Essentially the keyword is just what users are actually searching for and to relate that To a business, it's what your customers are searching for. So, for example, it could be you own a vinyl record shop in Sheffield. Now, what you're really looking for is people who are searching any variation of vinyl shop Sheffield.

So choosing the right keywords is just actually thinking about what is my perfect customer going to type into Google really, isn't it? And it's shutting your eyes and thinking, what does my perfect customer look like when they maybe walk into my store or come and buy from me in person? And you've got to almost second guess what they're going to type into Google? Is that fair?

Yeah, 100%. And I think a lot of the time it can be sometimes difficult when you are a business owner of, you know, trying to relate to customers. But if you would think of it as, I'm going to try and find a competitor. So if we try and stick with the vinyl record store in Sheffield, if you're wanting to kind of find your competitors, that's the perfect way to discover the right keywords. So as a business owner, you already know who your main competition is around the high street or be it online as well. So it's the words and the keywords and phrases that you're going to search to find those businesses, they are essentially the right keywords for you. But one thing that I do always like to say as well is when it comes to the keywords in particular, when we're talking about SEO, common sense does tend to prevail. You know, you know your business better than anyone else, you know it inside and out. So what do you sell, what do you offer to customers and how do you want those customers to find you? And that will give you right keywords for your business.

And it's often thinking a bit deeper, isn't it? So you couldn't be number one for Google for B and B, but actually you don't want to be number one for Google for bnb, because you want to be number one for BNB in your town or bed and breakfast in your town or bed and breakfast in Perthshire or whether it's red shoes in Ipswich, you actually want to broaden that keyword out because it's. That's achievable, right? Whereas if you try and just go for a spanner, you're never going to be top spanner. But if it's buyer spanner in Woodbridge, then that's possible, right?

Yeah, 100%. And that essentially relates to what we can see on screen now as keyword variations is it's easy to kind of split it into two groups. One of them is the broader terms, which obviously we can see on the left as just Red Shoes. Now if you just search Red Shoes, obviously depending on your location, you will see slightly different results to what's in this screenshot, but a lot of it will be similar. You know, you've got Amazon, you've got your big retailers, you've got new look Christian Louboutins. You know, you're up against these really big companies and if you just said, okay, I just want to go after Red Shoes, that's your competition. And obviously they have leading people working for them. They have hundreds of thousands of pounds budget for SEO each year as well. But if we do, then look on the right hand side. This is what we call long tail keywords. Now they're when you start to get a little bit more specific. So obviously in this instance we can see BNBS in Earwash. So the way we kind of look at it there is you could. It's not impossible to get number one for just BnB, but the intent of what that user's looking for as well is slightly different. So if someone's just searched bnb, they're likely looking, you know, they're not looking in a specific location, they just want to know about bees and like B and Bs. It could be that they're wanting to set one up themselves and looking into a little bit more information on how they can go around that.

Sorry, Matt, I think what's really interesting here is BNB Airwash. Actually what it demonstrates to me is there aren't many businesses in Erewhash really, really going after. There must be B and B's in this area. And what you've got here is you've got Google aggregating content together and then the next one, Dan, is actually council linking website. There's no actual independent business ranking in the top spot for BNB Airwash. Imagine what would happen if they did that.

Yeah, exactly. And that's why these sort of long tail keywords are so valuable to businesses because a lot of the time not many businesses are going after those very specific ones. But you know for a fact if someone does search that keyword, they are looking specifically for a B and B in a specific location. So they are very high intent, you know that, you know, if you can get into the top spot or even into the top three, if someone clicks on your website, there is a very high percentage there then going to maybe make a booking and obviously come and see you and use your business. So when you start to use those longer tail keywords, it can be much more valuable in terms of the overall conversions into customers at the end of it.

Absolutely. If you imagine if customers typed in BNB airwash and the first result that comes up below the map is if that business was there, how much traffic would they get? Matt. And from a customer's perspective, you've just been served, haven't you found what you want?

Yeah, exactly. So from a customer's perspective, they've got exactly what they want. You've kind of satisfied their overall goal of using search engine in this case. And from a business perspective, obviously each keyword itself has a different volume. Normally in SEO we work it on monthly averages, but what we can say is regardless of the overall number of monthly searches, the top spot normally drives somewhere in the region of 32 to 35% of all clicks.

That's amazing.

Yeah, exactly. So as you kind of move further down, you know, page one itself drives probably 90% in a total of all clicks from that keyword. So as you move on to page two, you know, it's very minimal numbers, which is why using SEO and showing as high as you can is so valuable.

So let's talk about how we do it. Matt. It's all about the metadata, is that right?

Yes. So metadata is one of the core, I suppose, principles of SEO itself. We kind of split that into two sections. So one of them is a meta description and the other is a meta title. Some people also refer to that as a page title, but they are the same thing. And essentially what they are is little pieces of code that you can put into your website. But a majority of the time it's not super technical. Using different CMS such as WordPress, Squarespace, Shopify, they give you a very easy way to implement this from a very user friendly perspective. And it's the way of essentially telling Google what it should be displaying when you show up in the search results. So obviously when you're in.

Sorry, sorry, Matt. The way, the way I always think about this is that we all, as business owners, we all fret about what our web page looks like and we worry about the copy and we worry about the images. But what goes on the page isn't actually the metadata, is it?

No, exactly. So what you put on the page itself, the content, we'll touch on that later on. But that is what you have, you know, that's what you want all of the users to read once they're on there, to give them all of the information they need and the metadata itself. The best way I always look at it is, and we can see from this screenshot, this is how it pulls through. So the top line there is obviously the title and underneath is the description. What you're using these for is to give users an enticing prospect of why they should click your result over any of the others that they can see. So it's obviously telling them, you know, along the lines of what they can expect to see on that page that's important, but it's also saying why you're so important to them, why you're a better choice than any of the other companies that show up. So it's really important not to just copy and paste certain parts that pop up throughout the page itself. It's really thinking what is going to make users click that result and come to our website.

And it also links to the search term they entered in the first instance. So if you search for, let's go back to the BNB error wash example that the metadata then wants to meet the user's expectation and say friendly bed and breakfast in Erewash, close to amenities. We're all living in a 5 second environment, isn't it? So the metadata has got to then take you down the next part of the journey and get you to your website. Right?

Yeah, 100%. Obviously you have control over what you tell Google the metadata should be, which I suppose you know, does mean to some extent you can put whatever you want in there, but you have to think about how relatable is it to the user for that search term. You know, you don't just want to put a random location in. You don't want to put in something that they're not going to be able to find. It's very much making it enticing by showing your USPs and using that to drive them.

Yes. So in maybe's example, which is maybe about the company we run, Social media engagement and social media insight tools. Okay. Knowing where to invest time and effort on social media can be challenging. Not reading, read, read a nod to go tell it, tell me about it. Maybe shows you the best performing content so you can quickly improve your results. Right, I'm going to click that. You're. You're helping me. And I think that's the, that's the whole point, isn't it? You got to, you got to hit, you got to find them, let the keyword find you and then you've still got to. That's your elevator pitch, isn't it? And your metadata has to do that on each page on your website?

Yeah, 100%. And obviously that was a perfect example with maybe as well, you know, in the title, we were basically telling them what you offer. And then in the description, you were actually addressing, you know, an issue that that user has, which is knowing where to invest the time and effort on social media is a challenge. So it's really kind of grabbing hold of them. As you said, an elevator pitch is the perfect way to kind of describe it and say, we know you've got this problem, here's how we can solve it. Click on us and find out more.

Going on from that. Then they've clicked on it. Am I right in saying, then I've come to the page and this is where H1 and H2 tags. Now, this sounds massively technical, Matt, come on, tell us, what does H1 and H2 and how does that relate to SEO? Talk us through that.

It does sound technical, but actually it's not. So H1, H2 is essentially just a heading, 1, heading, 2. So the H stands for heading, and the availability of them is one through to six. So it's not as, I suppose, daunting as it may be sounded. And when we start to talk about what they actually are, you've probably noticed yourself, Polly, you've clicked on a page from the search results for whatever search term you've looked at, you've got the content on the page. So now you're going to read through that content and you'll notice there's probably certain parts around the page where there's maybe one sentence every so often. That's a lot bigger, more bolder in your face than the rest of it. Those are the headings. And the way I like to think of them are, you know, think of them as chapters in a book, or in this case, the book is just one page long. And so from a user perspective, that's how they kind of function. It makes certain parts of the page pop. So it really draws your attention in. When we flip it into what it actually does for SEO, it's essentially, as we put that, it's kind of like the hashtag for search engines. So again, in the code base, there are easy ways to do this. Normally in the editor, for the text, you can highlight it and click heading from the menu and choose the number. Now, when you attach a heading, whether it's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6, you are basically sending a signal to Google of this particular sentence is something that's a Big topic on this page. So you're kind of using that as a hashtag to basically say, you know, on this page you will see XYZ topics or chapters, if you want to think about it like that. And it can use them again to kind of get those signals to say, this page is relevant for these search terms. So let's show it.

Oh, interesting. So what you're saying is it's pointing to Google. What are the most important bits on that page? So think of H1 is the thing that Google reads first to judge. You're telling Google where to go on the page to find the content.

Yeah, 100%. So the H1 itself would probably act more as the title of the book and then H2 through to H6 adds as chapters and subchapters. So the one thing to point out that's probably really useful to know is you can use as many headings as you want by. There's no rule against how many you can and can't use. But one piece of advice that's really crucial is to only ever have one H1 on a page. And the reason for that is the H1, as we just said there, gives the most significance to Google. You are saying to Google or any other search engine, this is the most important topic on this page. This entire page revolves around this.

Got you. So going back to the example we had of the maybe tech listing, the H1 tag for the page that you click through to from here should be about social media engagement and social media insights. The journey should follow through.

Yeah, exactly. You know, if you clicked that and you went on and the H1 was basically talking about red shoes as an example.

Yeah, yeah.

It doesn't line up, it doesn't work for search engines and it doesn't work for users. That user's just going to think, this is not what I need, and they'll go off your website and find someone else. So making sure it doesn't matter.

Is it fair to say, Matt, that, you know, we don't get bamboozled by the sort of the tech and the mystery of this and, you know, make your living from this, but is it fair to say that, you know, you have to think of the way that Google ranks pages is, is it going to give the user a good experience? So if you, if you can add the, think about the keywords that your customer are going to search for and then because that's what they're going to type into Google, you then need to make sure that your pages talk about those things. So that when. And your metadata and your H1 tags all line up. So in the metadata, all that means is the way that you are, if you like, categorising your book in the library, and that the H1 are literally your headings in the book, so that the experience is good. So it's not technology, it's actually just about, is the customer journey going to give you a good time?

Yeah, and I think that's one thing I always actually quite like to point out. Obviously, as you say, I do this for a living. So to friends, family, customers, whoever they may be, is in this world that we live in at the moment, we do take search engines for granted, such as Google, um, you know, for anything. We want to know whether it's to find a business or to find a really random fact that you want to go tell your friends at a party. So you seem, you know, really smart. Google is a business. And at the end of the day, if you went onto Google, you searched for something and nothing actually married up, and it didn't give you a good experience. No one would use Google and they would cease to be a company. So Google itself is quite easy to forget sometimes. It is a business. And because it's a business, they need to show the most relevant sort of search results that are actually going to satisfy their customers.

So, Matt, that's really where content comes in, isn't it? Once you've got the technical piece of the metadata Right, and the H1. Right, H1 H2HC tags, if you like your chapter headings, it comes down to content. And the content is what gives the user a good experience and ultimately is what drives the success of Google. I mean, they're all clever, aren't they? Google and Facebook, they're making a living from our own content and they show the best content to more people. So the better we make our content, the more people you get seen by.

Yeah, exactly. And I think content is obviously a very, very crucial part of a website as a whole, not even just SEO. You know, if someone went onto your website and there was no content on there, there's nothing for them, so why would they use it? And essentially, when we talk about content in the perspective of SEO, it is just everything contained on that page. So all the words that you put onto that page, that's your content. And, you know, that's why it's so important. You've done everything else that we've already been through, you've ticked them off the list, you've showed for the right keywords, You've made your metadata and your headings relevant enough and enticing enough that you've got that user onto your website. The content is now where you give that user what they want. So that could fall under many different branches. Obviously, if you're looking at BnBs, it's kind of talking about prices, availability, amenities, what's around there, why it's so good. And on the flip side, if we're looking at E commerce, it's actually the products themselves, product descriptions, sizes, prices, etc. And that content obviously gives the users everything they need to know to make that informed decision of will I go forward and use this company? But search engines use it in a very similar way. So as we've kind of talked about everything else before, the content on the page is what Google reads. So in a very non technical way, Google sends out what they call a little spider. It's not an actual spider, so I don't know why they call it spider.

Creepy gollies.

Yeah, most people don't like spiders. So it was a strange naming convention, but essentially it's a piece of code that goes onto a website and its job is to read all of the text on that page. That is its job. It sends it back to somewhere else. And that's where the more technical algorithm says this page is relevant for xyz. But when that spider is on the page, it's literally just looking at all the content and it's gathering all that content to send to the algorithm. Which is why that content is so important, because when it sends it off, that's how Google says your business is great. You will be really relevant for these hundreds of keywords and keyword variations. So we'll show you on our search results. So it's really using it to sell it to the customer, but make sure it's actually, you know, makes sense as well. So grammatically it's correct. You know, you're not just kind of writing things that don't make sense. And that's for both.

Google is the ultimate teacher, isn't it your homework? The great thing about online, good or bad, is that your homework is constantly being marked. And it all comes down to is the user going to have a good experience when they click through some of those results? Because ultimately that's what means we all use Google. If you went to Google and didn't find what you want, you wouldn't use it. So Google's job is to make sure they serve the most relevant content to people all the time, right?

Yeah, 100% a little talking about facts, a little fact that I do like is on average each year Google updates its algorithm more than once a day. So obviously a lot of these are very minor little changes. But a lot of it is these days how we can relate certain topics together. And obviously you know that it's very complex. It goes even over my head how they even build these systems. But that's where the content really comes in. You know, you want to make it as relatable to what you're actually selling or what that page is talking about as possible. Because as we move forward in future, these algorithms and systems are only going to get smarter. So it's really taking advantage of it now to be the top for years to come.

Incredible, isn't it? Google have really got it cracked. But it is absolutely imperative that you create great content. That's what will define the performance of your website in the search engine pages, right?

Yeah, 100%. So the content is very important and I would definitely recommend spending time going through it and making it as good as possible.

Got you. So Google gmb, Google My business. That's another whole layer of Google is this, is this. And again this is not. This is not paid content, is it Matt, or everything we've talked about. Right now you don't, you might have to invest in it in the sense of you have got to create content but Google don't charge you to be number one on their organic listings, which is anything that doesn't have an ad, right?

Yeah, 100%. So other than the cost of, I suppose we can call it labor. So that's the time and effort that goes into creating the content. Everything else is completely free.

Got you. And how can so Google My business and how can Google My business help from a local SEO perspective? What's all that about? So should we bring up a Google My business listing here? This is the listing on the right hand side of Google, isn't it? If somebody types in your web address, am I right in saying if you've completed your Google My business listing, this appears all down the right hand rail of Google?

Yeah, 100%. That's exactly how it works is if someone types in the name of your business and you've actually created and set up your Google My business profile. What we can see in this screenshot shows on the right hand side, obviously you've got other just your normal kind of results on the left hand side. But when you're looking at it, this right hand side just really pops out and I suppose just to Quickly touch on what local SEO is. It's not a complete new branch of SEO. It's literally referring to localized search terms. So for example BNB Sheffield, BNB Devon, their local SEO, their localized terms. So what it really does is you can really take advantage of that by using Google My business. So if you decided, okay, I'm a BNB and I'm based in Sheffield, you know, if you go on there and you set up your Google My business profile, you can show, as we can see in this screenshot here, on the right hand side, you're showing the maps as well. Because sometimes people will just search BNB location and use the maps to find whereabouts. Are they actually, you know, situated, how many are around there, what else is nearby? And that's what Google My business allows you to do is one half of it is what we can see on the screen now, which is your profile, your front facing profile and the other side is the maps. And that's not just sort of, you know, BNBS as well. It's restaurants, shops, anyone that's got a sort of physical location, local SEO will apply to you. And the best way to kind of get on top of that is, is Google My business because obviously as we said earlier as well, Polly, it's completely free, so it costs you nothing and you're getting all this additional benefit.

So Matt, we've done some really great videos with you about how to set up my Google My business profiles and we've done some really good reviews of what good looks like. So anybody that would like to know more, just make sure you click the little blue button on the bottom right hand side of your screen and you can find all sorts of other Google My business pieces. But it's, it's a really underutilized part of Google, isn't it Matt? It's something that you can just get massive benefit from for free. Just use it be listed on Google My Business. It's really important. It's what makes you show up on the map.

Yeah, 100%.

So keyword rankings, Matt, what is, we all have keyword rankings, let me tell you. So this is, I think this means that if I want to be ranked for B and B and error wash sheets, am I number one, number two, number three? And how can, how can, what can I do to impact that? And why does it matter?

Yeah, so that is exactly what it is. You know, if you go look into anything to do with SEO and you try and learn how to do it, you will hear keyword rankings relatively often. They are One of the biggest parts of it. And keyword rankings are essentially just the amalgamation of everything else we've spoken about. So it is kind of just saying, what position do you show for those search terms? So obviously, you know, we've kind of gone through the keywords, we've said these are the relevant keywords for my business. This is what I want to show for the keyword rankings are saying for that term. What position do you Show? Is it 1, 2, 3 or are you even showing, you know, in sort of 15 to 20, in which case obviously, you know, you want to kind of do a bit more SEO, push it back up there and be as high as you possibly can.

Brilliant. And what are the best ways to. Are there any shortcuts to getting great keyword ranking or is it just about following the steps? Matt, can you game the system or do you just have to follow the process?

Unfortunately you can't game the system. That would probably make my job a lot easier, but unfortunately you can't. It is kind of following that process. The main reason for that in the past you actually could game the system. And while people were doing that, you might hear a term, black hat SEO. That's essentially a very old school way of gaming the system. And what happened is exactly what we touched on earlier. Google started to realize none of these kind of results that we're showing actually make sense and it's not what users want to see. So people stopped using Google as much as. And so, you know, they've spent obviously I wouldn't even like to think how many years and how many thousands of millions of pounds have spent on it. But they've got things in place now that mean you can't game the system. One thing I do like to say is SEO is it's a longer term game as such, you know, it's going to take a bit of time because for every change you make on your website, Google has to be able to recrawl it using that spider, understand the change you've made and then relate that to its search results as well. So it's not an instant kind of, you know, I'm going to make a change and I'll be number one tomorrow. But the benefit you get from, you know, doing it correctly, following the guidelines and maybe waiting, you know, a month or so is kind of priceless for what you actually get back from it as well. So it can be.

So what are we looking at here? Tell me through this report we're looking at.

So this is just an example of keyword rankings. This is an example pull from a tool called Site Checker. There are, I would hesitate to say thousands of tools out there that have the ability to kind of track your rankings. But just to give a kind of overview of what this might look like, on obviously the left hand side we can see there's a keyword section. And these are all the keywords that in this example, you know, this business are wanting to really rank for show number one and drive the traffic. We've got volume and trend. So some tools have this, some don't. The volume is literally just as we said earlier, how many people are searching it per month on average, the trend. This is a relatively new thing that companies are kind of picking up now. This is kind of showing, you know, they've used their software to say over the last six months, how is that volume kind of differed? So you can basically see from there, is it very similar? Are we getting a similar amount each month as we were six months ago? Some might drop off, some might, you know, go up. But where it really comes in, and I suppose the big thing we want to look at here is we've got the position column next to it. So we can see there for this example website, when you've got Google Data Studio template, they're currently ranking in position 36. And next to it it kind of just says what's the difference in one day? So a lot of them will be one day a week or you can actually just put your own date range in. So you can see that compared to yesterday they've actually increased four places. Now obviously this is just an example one, but essentially it's saying to them, okay, well, 720 people a month on average search for this term. We're currently showing in position 36. Now we're probably getting one or two clicks every month being in that position. But imagine if we were in position one, we would be getting, you know, a huge chunk of that 720 clicks per month. And that's just for that one term. So it gives you a way of saying what do we need to prioritize? What keywords do we need to improve? And obviously once you find those keywords, it's saying which page do we essentially just need to optimize for that keyword.

At the end of the day, Matt, that's what you're saying starts from the beginning of this webinar. When you start with that search box on Google, what's your customer going to type in? How many people do that every month and therefore how Much are you willing to invest in making sure that you're on page one and the nearest top of it? Because the closer you are to number one, the more you get to each bit of that traffic. And that's really SEO in a nutshell, isn't it?

Yeah, it is. I have spent years trying to explain it to friends and family of what I do. But that is SEO in a nutshell. It's, you know, essentially finding what people, what your target audience and customers are going to search on Google or any other search engine and just making sure you show as high as possible for that term.

Sounds easy when you say it like that, Matt. So to give somebody, you know, somebody that you know, for anybody that's watching this recording and thinking, gosh, I know I need to do this. So what would be your three top tips of where to start, what should they do, how much of this can you do yourself and where should they start?

Yeah, so a majority of the time, everything we spoke about you, you can do yourself. A lot of it does come down to obviously the size of your website. You know, especially if you're maybe an E commerce website with thousands of products, your website soon becomes very large. So keeping on top of it can be harder. But I think the first piece of advice is literally bite the bullet and start now. It's one of those things that it's very easy to think, I'll start it next month or, you know, I'll look at it again maybe next week, but it's never actually going to change. So you can put it off and there are reasons why you might need to. But essentially SEO is a longer term game, as we said. And because it's a longer term game, the sooner you start kind of optimizing and implementing what we spoke about today, the sooner you will see the benefits. The second tip would be review your competitors. So as we kind of touched upon earlier, obviously any business owner knows who their competitors are really. And even if it's just one or two businesses, you'll think, okay, they're the ones that we need to really, you know, make sure we're better than them. So go look into how they're performing, you know, search relevant terms for, you know, where your kind of product offering crosses over with them and find where are they seemingly driving the traffic from. So wherever they're showing highest or the terms that they're showing highest for in search results, you want to go after them. And it can sound a bit cutthroat at times, but that's the way it is so you want to say, okay, they've got this page, let's make ours better, and just go one step further, go two steps further. And essentially, if they're not keeping on top of it, you know, they won't even really notice that you've done that. So you've made huge benefit from it, and it'll take them, you know, a lot of time to get back to maybe try and then outdo you. I think the third one as well, the third tip would just be to try and keep on top of it. And what I mean by that is kind of industry news. So obviously, part and parcel of my job is that I need to do that personally anyway. I wouldn't be very good at what I do if I didn't keep up to date with what was happening. But there are a lot of websites out there that obviously give you industry news in terms of SEO, but from a more beginner perspective. So it doesn't go into the super technical XYZ happen. Someone's done this, someone's done that, but it'll just tell you the things that change. And most of the time, that's all you really need to know is if you're driving that traffic and you've got good keyword rankings, you've kind of implemented everything we've spoke about today, that's fine. But as we move forward in time, Google will make some slight changes to how their algorithms work and how they kind of assess who is best. And if you aren't, you know, kind of aware of these little changes, you might just start going down in the rankings. If you go down in the rankings, you're getting less clicks. So it's really just about keeping on top of everything. And, yeah, essentially, I think just go for it. I've seen fantastic results for clients in the past where SEO has just kind of taken over everything else from their marketing strategy. And it's made a huge difference because, as we say, they're not paying for the click, so the revenue they make is their revenue.

I mean, Matt, it's an enormous topic, and I think the advice I really take away from that is just get started, because it's, It's. You can't ignore it, but don't be put off by it because it sounds something you can't do. I think the key message from our perspective is, you know, you've got any questions, drop them in the blue button and we can connect you with Matt. And, you know, don't be afraid of it, because it's just Google, Google's your friend and Google is where your customer goes and looks for what they want. So make sure you show up. Matt, as always, it's been an absolute pleasure and for anybody listening, please click the blue button. You've got any questions? Matt's created lots of other great content within maybe and if you haven't got what you want ready recorded, one of our team will connect you with him so he can answer your questions directly. Matt, thank you.

Thanks.

Polish.