In this post we are going to explain some of the easy wins your SME can implement, for free, at your own leisure!
Your digital presence is critical to get right! Things like your website, e-commerce and branding are like your virtual storefront where people from around the world can come to check out your services and products.
The world of web design is constantly changing and evolving but there is a chance that you have absolutley nailed your web flow, optermisation, branding and product/ service offering. However at Active Internet Marketing (UK) we still see the same mistake happening again and again….. a total lack of backend strategy because you know… its hard!
So lets get stuck in to the easy wins and the absolute musts if you are going to take your website seriously and get your digital presence ranking on search engines.
Keywords (and keyword strategy) are specific words or phrases that encapsulate the core topic of a piece of content, idea, or subject matter. They play a pivotal role across various domains, including communication, research, marketing, and digital optimisation. Let’s delve into their importance in different contexts.
In the realm of search engine optimisation (SEO) and digital marketing, keywords are the terms people type into search engines when looking for information, products, or services.
In academic and professional writing, keywords represent the primary themes or concepts of an article, paper, or document.
In pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, keywords determine when ads are displayed to users based on their search queries.
Google prioritises content that aligns with search intent. Your content will only rank for a keyword if it directly addresses the needs of searchers. Therefore it is important to consider your service as to wether your products are informational, navigational, commercial or transactional – in this case, we use a car rental service as an example.
Furthermore, it must outperform competitors in value and relevance. Content that fails to offer superior insights or utility will not achieve top rankings.
Lastly you need to look at the term MSV – MSV in marketing stands for Monthly Search Volume. It is a metric that indicates the average number of times a specific keyword or phrase is searched for on a search engine (like Google) within a month.
An effective approach to strategic keyword prioritisation involves categorising keywords into the following segments:
You might rank on the first page for a specific keyword, but you won’t see any traffic if no one ever searches for it. It’s like setting up a shop in a ghost town.
Volume is measured by MSV an one of the common mistakes people make is assuming that a higher MSV is better. ‘PPC marketing’ might seem like the best choice to rank for because it has millions of searches but because of the volume it makes it much more difficult for your business to rank for that.
Its possible to have better luck with something like ‘PPC car marketing for SME businesses’ — and then that can be in your niche. Statistically you could get a lot more traffic ranking for a keyword that has a lower MSV and lower competition than one with a high MSV.
Its all about your business, your services and then how many competitors you currently have, which brings us on to….
Keyword difficulty is important in search engine optimisation (SEO) because it helps you identify search terms you have the potential to rank highly for in the organic listings of the search engine research pages.
When you understand which keywords you can rank for, you can invest more resources into content that will likely generate more traffic from search engines to your website.
After all, higher rankings in the organic results usually lead to more clicks, which can translate to more website conversions and better business results.
By combining difficulty scores with other insights, you can select the best possible keywords for your content strategy. The aspects to focus on here that relates to difficulty are the following:
Relevancy ties into the other 3 aspects mentioned above. It kind of goes without saying but if any of your strategies, keywords, intentions aren’t relevant to what your core business strategy stands for then essentially your digital presence and website stratgey needs a total overhaul!
Once you have your keyword strategy, you then need to think about the content you are going to publish to rank you as high as possible on your search engines. The way to rank as high as possible on these seach engines is by using the framework of E.E.A.T.
It’s important to understand that Google has a framework that is crucial to use, if you want to rank higher in their search engine. Let’s go through the 4 pillars of E-E-A-T in more detail:
In an ideal world, every piece of content would be written by someone with first-hand expertise on the topic. For example, a digital marketing agency like Active Internet Marketing (UK) wouldn’t venture into writing about neuroscience—it simply wouldn’t make sense. However, the reality is quite different, and much of the content on the internet is created without such specialised knowledge.
As a result, Google’s quality raters have started explicitly rewarding content created by authors who have proven experience with the subject matter at hand, indicating a shift away from the mere technical SEO of the past.
Take the query “best car rentals,” for example. The two highest-ranking posts include talking about having personally tested the best experiences in this category. When preparing to make a big purchase, people want to read about others’ experiences, positive and negative, using the product – Not a corporation’s take on why you should buy their product.
In short – reviews on your products or services are essential for gaining experience!
Google provides more weight to sources it deems authoritative.
You can become an authoritative source by enriching your site with helpful, informative content and promoting that content to earn social signals and backlinks.
If you’re not seen as authoritative in the space, or if a keyword’s SERPs are loaded with heavy sources you can’t compete with, you have a lower chance of ranking.
SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages): Are the pages displayed by a search engine in response to a user’s query. They contain a list of links to websites, along with additional features designed to provide information or context for the search.
Expertise are a new addition to the model of EEAT as before it was just EAT. The short answer is accolades! Technically speaking it can get a bit more technical on the signals that tell Google that it should see you as particularly knowledgeable or skilled in your field.
Noramlly sharing your credentials on your site, spending years consistently writing in a certain topic or partnering with other experts to hold more weight to your content works. It’s also important to note that expertise will look different depending on your industry and the topic at hand.
Google splits topic types into two categories:
Here are the types of pages most commonly classified as YMYL (Your Money or Your Life), according to Google:
Finance: Websites offering financial advice, such as fintech platforms, must demonstrate expertise and trustworthiness to guide users’ monetary decisions effectively.
Shopping: E-commerce sites and resources for shopping research need to establish credibility and reliability to ensure user confidence.
News and Public Information: Pages covering politics, current events, or other public matters must avoid misinformation, as it can significantly impact people’s quality of life.
Medical and Safety: Websites providing physical or mental health advice hold the highest responsibility for ensuring accuracy due to their direct influence on users’ well-being and safety.
Government and Law: Pages offering information on legal matters, voting, or local government must be current and accurate to serve as reliable resources.
Associations: Content discussing topics related to ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, or veteran status is closely scrutinised to protect users and ensure fairness and accuracy.
For most YMYL topics, Google wants to see content creators with more formal and concrete credentials — think education, certifications and other forms of formal expertise.
If you work in a technical field like cybersecurity, for example, it’s important that Google sees some schooling or training that qualifies you to write about the topic.
Google considers nearly every health-related query to be a YMYL topic. So any post like “Fantastic Health Benefits For You!” — Google will hold it to a high standard of E-E-A-T.
For non-YMYL topics, Google defines expertise differently—often in the form of life experience rather than formal qualifications.
Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines specifically state: “If it seems as if the person creating the content has the type and amount of life experience to make him or her an ‘expert’ on the topic, we will value this ‘everyday expertise’ and not penalize the person/webpage/website for not having ‘formal’ education or training in the field.”
Now naturally there will some overlap of experience and expertese in this new framework, however as long as both are covered in depth and there are formal demonstrations of knowledge and extensive experience, you are on the right track.
Some great examples of trustworthiness that you can feature on your page are the following:
~ Information about content authors
~ Sufficient contact information
~ Precision and accuracy of content
~ Citation of trustworthy sources
To summarise, the best way to enahnce your E-E-A-T isn’t just through one metric alone. Instead, it requires a holistic evaluation of various elements, including the credibility of the authors, the overall quality of the website, and the brand’s reputation. For this reason, E-E-A-T is not considered a direct ranking factor but rather a framework that influences how search engines assess content quality. Just make sure that you include the following:
So…now that you have the keywords and the aspects of how to populate the content… we actually have to start publishing the content. Its imperative that we circle back to … Relevance!
If my audience is heavily realted to clothing, then whilst a post about my family, or Christmas is great for me, it does nothing for my audience. The number one rule with content of any kind is that (apart from being relevant) it has to add value. An description of the product, where its sourced from and why that matters should appeal to my customers.
You must accomplish all of this whilst sticking to your brand guidelines and adding insightful tones so that your consumer base can become further invested into your mission statement and start to generate brand champions.
Lastly another thing to do, thats free and easy to help your online presence is blogging!
Adding personal stories in the form of blogs, posts or a nice, detailed ‘About Us’ page can humanise your brand and add a personal touch that users can better connect with. Regular posting on blogs show that people are behind your company and your website and that your business will be there to help users. Personal stories, perhaps the use of testimonials, can not only invoke emotion but can show that your company is good at what they do.
Backlinks, also called inbound links or incoming links, are links from one website to another. They’re a cornerstone of search engine optimisation (SEO) because they signal to search engines like Google that a website is credible, trustworthy, and relevant.
When writing blogs, try to reference relevant players in the space that complement the content, support consensus and add ‘authority’.
For Example: Some of the content we used to clarify our points were from these posts here and here!
In simple terms, when another website links to yours, it’s like a vote of confidence in your content.
Top Tip: Dont just get an outdated or dead website to link to your site. If the website that has linked to your site is not active it can damage your SEO quite significantly. Regarding backlinks, it’s not about how many you have—it’s about where they come from. A single backlink from a reputable site is far more valuable than loads from low-quality sources. Focus on earning backlinks that align with your niche and audience for the best results.
Look.. there is a lot to consider, but if you follow this blog step by step, the process of improving your website and online presence becomes quite easy. By utilising these steps you should be able to find appropriate strategies for any of your business models and we guarantee you that you will start to see results.
