So there you are, searching endlessly, trying to find a great SEO agency in Birmingham who can take care of the search engine optimisation for your business. You know a little bit about SEO but not enough to do it yourself; you just understand that it is a technique used to drive organic travel to your website. More traffic equals more potential customers so without SEO, your website and your business may flounder.

DIY combined with expert prowess

But what happens once you find a good SEO expert to help you? Does this mean that you can stop blogging and using keywords in the articles that you post on your website? Will you be able to leave it all up to them to get you to the top in Google results? The answer is no; you will still need to do your bit but by working with an expert in SEO, any work that you do will be optimised.

Even once you have found the perfect SEO company to help you, it is still worth understanding how it all works and the type of hacks that you can apply to do your bit. It will also make your conversation with your chosen SEO professional far more knowledgeable; you will know what questions to ask and what answers to expect.

Our fave 8 SEO hacks

So what are the best tips for applying SEO tactics and how do they work? Here are our fave eight SEO hacks:

1. Google Knowledge panel – you might not know that when you search for a company using Google, the box on the right that pops up is referred to as the Google Knowledge Panel. This pinpoints appropriate information relevant to that business and is widely used by viewers. But how do you get into this highly-prized box? Much depends on relevance and location and you can improve your chances by having a Google My Business profile with keywords and categories to suit you. This provides no guarantee that you will appear but does increase your chances dramatically.

2. Google Local Packs – similar to (1) above, this is the pick of Google’s results, reflecting local businesses that match the search terms. Given that this appears in the top results more than 90% of the time, you need to optimise your web content for local searches; this way you have a very good chance of showing up in the local search results. Also add your location to the Google My Business profile, aim for the top and make a massive difference to your local search results.

3. Google ‘People Also Ask’ box – this appears below search results and if you can get into this slot, your SEO results will jump on up. To get in here, take a look at some of the questions that appear and then copy them in your content i.e. include a question and answer page that provides the result. If you are a Tree Surgeon and the question, ‘How can I get my trees cut safely?” appears, put this into your Q&A. Although this is not a sure fire win, it is definitely going to put you ahead of other businesses within your sector.

4. Image file names – did you know that Google examines the text within your image file names? Rather than leaving your image with its confusing computer name such as 123456.jpg call it ‘Pruning-an-Oak-tree’, using dashes to link the individual words. Great file names are valuable so take the time to get them spot on.

5. Featured snippets – these are at the top of the Google search results and show the URL, page title and a small amount of information. You can work on getting here by looking at who is already appearing; look at some competitor featured snippets and the keywords they are using, similar to (3) above. Make your content extremely targeted and succinct.
6. Google Top Stories – this is about being relevant and changes daily, ranked according to ‘top stories’. Not so much keyword focused but more to do with what people are talking about. Check out Twitter and use # instead of keywords to help your content hit the top.

7. Video is king – if you aren’t using video then you are missing out big time and how you title and describe your video provides a major advantage. This will have a major impact upon your CTR (Click Through Rate). Your YouTube description of your video needs to be specific and must include keywords. Try answering questions in order for Google to take you to the top. For example, you could use the title: ‘How to safely prune your tree’ if you are a tree surgeon or ‘How will a tree surgeon cut my trees down?’

8. Get Tweeting – use your Twitter account and get active; don’t just Tweet your own stuff but network with others. Answer questions, communicate with customers, and enter competitions. Get talking and get social. At the same time, optimise your Twitter content with keywords. Do all of this and you will get more followers and Google will automatically see you as being someone worth knowing and ranking.

SEO going forward

Take note of our eight great tips, use a good SEO company in Birmingham and you will be well on your way to getting to that much coveted top-spot in Google. Sure it takes time, effort and some research but the results do pay off. If you carry on doing your thing whilst your SEO professional takes care of the rest, your commitment will reap rewards. Simply continue to be detailed, dedicated and current and you too can begin to make use of these powerful SEO hacks that many businesses need to have but know nothing about.

And once you have found the most suitable SEO agency for you, keep hold of them. It is the professionals that take the time and care and put in the effort and attention to detail that bring about powerful search engine optimisation results. By looking at the amount of hits your website has and watching this increase organically, you will know that all of the hard work is paying off.

You then need to make the most of the traffic coming in your direction and take the time to convert all of these new leads into sales. This way, your ROI with regard to your investment in SEO can only go one way – and that is up!

Want more?
SEO is constantly changing and with voice search becoming bigger and bigger and home devices such as Alexa growing year on year it’s worth checking out how vocie search will grow in the coming years and change the face of SEO.