With such fierce competition, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are constantly looking for effective, cost-efficient marketing strategies to enhance their visibility and drive growth. For many, SEO is seen as a luxury and far too complex to dedicate resources to. However, taking this approach could mean that SMEs are missing out on a powerful tool and the valuable opportunities that can come from SEO.
Now, as experts in SEO, we might be a little biased when we say that yes, SEO is definitely a worthwhile investment for SEO growth. We’ve seen time and time again how quality SEO has helped our clients’ businesses expand, by creating a credible foundation and sustainable online presence for them.
But we understand you might need a little more convincing. First, let’s look at some of the struggles SMEs can face when it comes to growth.
What are the challenges of SME growth?
There can be many barriers for SMEs trying to scale up. We know how difficult it can be for smaller companies to compete against the heavy hitters. Many industries are highly competitive, and it can be tricky to find ways to stand out against the crowd.
Digital marketing is constantly evolving and developing. Often, smaller businesses can be using outdated and redundant tactics to attempt to grow, such as creating low-value content that prioritises the search engine over the audience.
There are many different digital marketing routes that can be leveraged, including SEO, paid search, and social media, with all needing a slightly different approach to make the most of them. It can be difficult for SME owners to keep on top of the current best practices whilst also trying to manage the day-to-day of their business.
Many businesses today know that it’s important to have an online presence. You may have a website and some social media pages that can demonstrate what your business does. But without the right resources to cultivate these platforms, SMEs could find that just not enough people are finding them and their services.
How can SEO drive growth?
This is where SEO comes into play. Effective, impactful SEO will get your business in front of the right audience, driving the people who want to pay for your goods and services to your website. When your website ranks higher in search results, you’ll get more traffic which turns into conversions – which then boosts your rankings, and the cycle begins again.
You might think that small and medium businesses just don’t stand a chance next to the bigger, more established industry leaders. But that’s why smart SEO is so important. Many smaller businesses will start local, targeting keywords that are relevant to their local communities that have less competition. This can give them a firm foundation and solid online presence from which to grow and expand. SEO truly levels the playing field, providing a cost-effective way of competing with larger companies in a way that no other marketing strategy can.
Successful SEO for small businesses will involve crafting quality, purposeful content, focusing on the audience rather than Google alone. The best SEO will be able to balance both aspects, resulting in informative content that enhances user experience whilst ranking on search engines. With a website full of high-quality content, SMEs can build credibility and brand identity, at the same time gaining trust and loyalty from customers. As your customer base grows, so will your business.
Ok, but what results will we really see from SEO?
It’s true that SEO will rarely give a business instant results. But SEO is all about long-term growth, not just the quick wins.
An effective, sustainable SEO strategy will build and accumulate over time, with results developing over 6-12 months. The beauty of SEO is that the benefits will also be long-term. As your website moves higher through the rankings, you’ll see more traffic to your website, more conversions, and, importantly, higher profits. With patience and commitment, you can see your business grow and grow.
Once the foundation is built, it can continue to be enhanced, maintaining and improving your high rankings. By retaining a focus on SEO, you’ll stay on top of the latest SEO best practices and preserve your position and rewards.
So, is SEO worth it for small and medium businesses?
Yes – SEO is absolutely worth it for SMEs. SEO provides unbeatable, cost-effective benefits for businesses, such as creating strong online visibility in front of the relevant audience, generating quality leads, and building a credible brand identity.
As one of the leading SEO marketing agencies in Sussex, we have over a decade of experience working with small and medium businesses, taking an integrated approach to deliver real results. We create bespoke campaigns for our clients and will get to know your brand fully to deliver a comprehensive search marketing solution with real bite.
Contact us today to start the journey to grow your business with dynamic SEO.
What’s the deal with ranking fluctuations? Should what seems like a scary haywire series of fluxes cause the heart to plummet? In a nutshell, no. In fact, with SERP fluctuations, change is, quite frankly, the name of the game. This blog will focus on putting ranking fluctuations into perspective while keeping your cool and gliding through a bout of fluctuations, without letting these quite normal ups and downs tip you off balance; with a heads up thrown in on how to spot when you should have cause for concern and need to take action.
Ranking fluctuations are quite normal and happen to everyone. URLs rarely stay ranked at the top, or indeed in any one position for long periods of time and rankings can and do fluctuate across the board in most search results. Yes, there can be some consistency within the fluxes and a consistent position may be held for a period and then lost for a while then regained again. Heraclitus noted, “change is the only constant” and this is certainly true of SERP fluctuations.
If you’re a hawk-eyed daily observer of your rankings you may notice your position hop about more than the Easter Bunny; particularly true the lower down the page we scroll. One minute you’re 23 the next 9, then back to 23 then down to 6. It can’t be stressed how common this is and shouldn’t generally be cause for undue worry.
Ranking fluctuations explained
It’s normal to expect some fluctuation.
If you’re experiencing out of the ordinary and quite frankly unwelcome harsh fluxes, such as unexpected and abrupt drops in page traffic throughout your site overnight, so all or most of the pages dropping rankings on a big scale; then something is amiss and should be addressed. The cause could be several things, such as technical on page problems or the site losing valuable links. Equally, did you do something wrong in the eyes of Google so the site’s been penalised? Has Google devalued any of your links? Investigate, find the cause of the problem, and eliminate the issue.
More often than not, when all is running well, fluctuations are to be expected, aren’t usually so harsh and usually nothing at all to worry about. It’s normal to expect more fluctuation the lower down you are in search results. Flux does happen towards the top but it’s usually more common and frequent in the latter result pages.
A URL ranking in the top two slots, for instance, for several consecutive months, is very unlikely to see a whole load of flux. Position may change a couple of times, but the crazy ricocheting is to be expected in the bottom results. It’s to be expected and both taken with a pinch of salt. If your SERP is lower down in the results, fluctuation isn’t necessarily a bad thing, particularly if it’s mostly going in the right direction, of course.
If your URL is getting picked up as one of the highfliers, it’s likely you’ll see more flux in the early days of getting ranked in the top five, for example, than you will when you’ve held your ranking position in these coveted skies for a lengthy period of time.
Rankings can, however, be about as clear as mud some days, in terms of actually getting an accurate handle on where your URL stands. They’re not always the gospel truth to go by in terms of who is actually seeing your URL in their search results. Why? Because factors such as geographical location, device used and the particular day you happen to check in on your ranking can all affect the result you are actually seeing compared to where you rank in real terms, in where you come up in the search engines and what a proportion of other people will be seeing. i.e. You may be featuring higher in some search results than you appear to be due to factors such as localisation having a massive effect on search results. Google is a biggie in terms of the impact of localisation on search results, and users with as little as 1 mile distance between them could be seeing different search results for the same query.
Naturally, other factors can affect rankings. Fluctuation can go into overdrive, for example, when an intrinsically temporal query or result is in play, so, if relevant, this can be a common factor affecting the ranking and diversification of search results.
Putting rankings into perspective
The trick to getting an accurate overview is to base your perspective of rankings on a longer term basis, over a period of several weeks or a couple of months, and step away from the daily stalking of SERP stats. Instead, try to relax and take the wider view. This way you’ll have a much clearer, truthful and helpful picture of where your rankings are at and what, if anything, you need to do.
Observe also how your SEO strategies affect rankings and how changes you make affect fluctuations.
Don’t solely rely on rank trackers. Get a bit more personal. Take a closer look at your page traffic. If traffic to your pages and organic search are actually fairly consistent and organic visits are regularly steady then chances are people are seeing your URL and your content marketing and SEO strategies are working.
Take a look at how your competitors are doing in the stakes. Is their URL fluctuating in much the same way to yours over similar periods of time? Probably. It’s unlikely to be anything you’re doing wrong; it’s unlikely to be anything to do with anything you are doing at all. It could be said that SERP and Google work in mysterious ways. Google fluxes happen. Normally no action is required and then, fluxes pass, as fluxes do. If traffic is plummeting, take a look at the bigger picture, and if the bigger picture is amounting to a continual going down in rankings; return to the strategic drawing board with the view of optimising your search engine positioning. Can you be more creative and adaptable with your content and link building game plan?
Staying calm in the SERPs
These choppy SERP seas are all par for the course, so finding your sea legs is always a good start. Try not to let the turning tides baffle you and instead keep a level head and return to the ‘bigger picture’ we touched on before. Keep an eye on the ball; know your own game and know it well; keep interested in your competitors who are getting it right and their tactics; be aware of new competitors that join the SERPS; and above all try to stand out from the crowd and keep one step ahead of your competitors by employing clever and innovative content marketing. But as far as the bog standard Google flux goes, it’s usually okay and no cause for alarm; so it’s usually fine to let fluxes go on their merry flux way. And carry on as you are.
I’d like you to settle down and make yourselves comfortable because this blog post is going to be a bit of a long one. Well, it’d be rude not to be, it is a blog all about long-form content, after all. So, grab yourself a cuppa and shut the rest of the world out while we spend the next 10 minutes looking into why long-form content should be an integral part of your content strategy.
Now, if we are to believe the digital age scaremongering, the mere thought of a long article or blog post is enough to put users off. Research carried out by Microsoft in 2015 showed the average attention for an adult is a shocking 8.25 seconds, that’s currently one second less than a goldfish and approximately 4 seconds less than it was for us in 2000. Further reports state that the average attention span of someone reading online content may be as low as 2-3 seconds! If that’s the case, I’m assuming you’ve stopped reading already! Hello……You still there??
So, are we to accept this notion, that any content taking 10 seconds or longer to read, just won’t get a look in? If it’s ‘too long’, apparently, we as users, don’t want to read it and can’t read it, with our less than satisfactory attention spans. Are we now a nation of goldfish brains with an inability to read, consider or absorb any more than a couple of sentences without losing interest?
Surely not! Long prose doesn’t have to put users off and doesn’t have to be a drag! Naturally, the content needs to be well-written and interesting to read, so considering how it’s going to be received by the reader is key. The trick is to write long content without it being, well, boring.
In addition to thinking about the reader and keeping their interest, primary consideration needs to be given to how the content will fare in search engine ranking. So, we’re going to look at these two factors but first, we should establish exactly what long-form content is.
What is long-form content?
There’s no hard and fast rule when it comes to how long long-form content should be. It’s generally taken to mean more than 1,000 words but can be as long as you need it to be. If you’re writing a user manual for a product or a welcome pack for a particular service or client group, it stands to reason it’s going to take a lot of words to make sure you have included everything that needs to be shared.
So long prose or long-form content can apply to blogs or articles but also other, more lengthy content. Some argue that long-form content only truly becomes this at 4,000 words plus, others say that once you reach the 1,500-word mark, you are hitting lower levels of long-form. But, as we’ll see a little later, content doesn’t need to be pushing on 4,000 words or more to get the results you need.
Does a reader want long-form content?
A reader ultimately wants to be entertained, informed, or helped when they consume content and, in some cases, they will be happy to read line upon line of the content if it ticks a few of the imaginary boxes.
Compelling The content must be interesting, informative, and useful. I know this probably goes without saying but I’m going to say it anyway because it’s worth bearing in mind, particularly when writing a longer piece. Always consider the reader and ensure you are writing something worthy of holding their attention and worthy of their precious time.
Relevant Make the content relevant. Relevant to your sphere of business, relevant to your readership and pertinent to current market trends or topical conversations. Relevance breeds interest, and interest breeds a captive reader. When you successfully keep the content relevant, a reader can stay on that page until the final word has been consumed and not even notice they sucked in 5,000 words or more.
Succinct Content should be succinct and precise. Don’t waffle and use unnecessary words, it very quickly becomes boring and loses the reader. Bringing a personality to your writing is essential and will make it interesting to read; however, consider carefully throughout the piece, that you aim to hold the attention of the reader. So, avoid going off on irrelevant and confusing tangents. We’ve all seen it, in an attempt to appear smarter, or more authoritative, a complex array of words decorates a page, only to leave the reader questioning what is being said. With the enhancement of AI writing tools too, it’s very easy to suddenly lose your authentic voice and style of writing and instead bog the reader down in a quagmire of confusion, inaccuracy and unoriginality.
Structured When structuring your content, it will largely depend on what type of content you are producing. An old-school approach, for example, is best when writing an article or longer piece. Start with an introduction, cover the key points, break up the text into suitable sections with headings, include visually pleasing content such as an infographic and end with a conclusion. Job done! This method works because it holds the content together; gives it structure and flow; and makes it easier to read, digest and refer to.
If you have a decent infographic that will enhance your content, it always helps to throw it in. To see in pictures and other visuals an explanation of what is being read helps encourage readers to read on. They’ve seen an answer but now they want to know more!
Content that can answer ‘How’ and ‘Why’ search queries is one popular route when structuring long-form content. Think about how often you use Google and how often you may search with a question word. Your audience is doing it too! Alternatively, think how often you might search for “the five best ways to xxx” or “most popular xxx in xxx.” These list-driven searches provide you with listed long-form results that are informative, and detailed and hit the exact search intent of the user.
Why long-form content helps your Google rankings
Contrary to general perception, long-form content is liked by readers; it gets read and ranks excellently. In addition, Google loves knowing that you have provided it with a wealth of information to show the person searching.
A 2019 article from Backlinko was full of praise for long-form content. In fact, it was positively gushing about how vital long-form content can be. It showed that long-form content gets an average of 77.2% more backlinks than short-form pieces. We all know Google loves a backlink, so this alone indicates your climb up the SERPs is likely to be a little easier with good long-form pieces that others want to link to.
Furthermore, a piece updated in March 2024, also from Backlinko, showed that the average word count for a first-page piece on Google was coming in at 1,447 words. Where are the shorter pieces you may ask? Check the rankings in the high teens and early twenties and you might find them!
We can also refer to what the team at Wordstream tell us. Using their content as an example, they switched up their style, changing from regular short-form content dominating their pages to more long-form. This saw the average time on their site jump from 1min 33secs to 4mins 35. And, just like Google loves backlinks, it enjoys seeing people stay on a page, consuming the content they have found. Slowly nudging you up the rankings as your relevance, authority and quality become more proven.
Back in 2012, another batch of research, this time conducted by serpIQ, threw up some interesting statistics about long-form content. More than 20,000 keywords were analysed to find the average content length of the pages shown in the top 10 results for each keyword. The findings are perhaps surprising. Every page reaching the top 10 for each keyword search had a content length of more than 2,000 words. The average number of words, for the content on the page ranking the highest for each keyword, was 2,416. The average number of words for the site ranking in 10th position was 2,032.
Multiple sets of results, but one clear fact. Long-form works!
How does long-form content benefit your website?
There are a host of reasons long-form content can benefit your website, it’ll not only see you climb up the rankings, but it will help you appear as the authoritative voice in your field. The one that customers, employees, commentators and more will turn to when they need to seek answers. Let’s jump in a little deeper.
Your search engine ranking goes up!
Long-form content is a must for any website, whatever your business. Blogs, articles, guides, brochures, and more are a perfect platform to target niches, engage customers and boost search engine rankings. Search engines appear to big up long-form content. How content ranks is often a close-guarded secret, Google don’t want to spoil our fun trying to suss how to hit that first page. However, there are potentially as many as 200 ranking factors for us to consider!
In March 2024 Google wrote about how they have further enhanced search to ensure unoriginal content is less likely to have a high ranking and how the more helpful, detailed information is pushed closer to the top. This is where long-form stands to help. By answering a host of questions, and giving detailed, relevant information, Google will give you preference over the unoriginal, rushed, shorter, less informative pieces. With more traffic being sent to those creating higher-quality and more user-intent-focused content, it stands to reason that you will see your rankings improve. As of April 2024, Google claims you will now see 45% less low-quality content in search results. Certainly food for thought when creating content calendars!
As mentioned earlier on, an SEO benefit of writing long-form content is the increased backlinks. These extra backlinks will help your site rank well with the SERPs too.
You become experts in your field
Putting lengthy, reliable, well-researched and expert content out there – particularly if it’s useful, helpful, or informative – will set you up as a business that’s ‘in the know.’ A trusted and turned-to expert, providing invaluable resources in your area of expertise.
Regularly posting such content will continue to boost your authority and position as a relevant voice in the field. This continual kudos building provides more proof of your standing in your sector and gives a chance to build on your business profile and user engagement, as you enhance your business.
User engagement increases
Providing regular informative, lengthy content, offering advice and ‘how to’ guidance will create a good relationship between you and your customers because they are turning to you as a resource. As information providers who know what they’re talking about, it’s a great way to engage with your client base. Long-form content gives the reader both value and reward.
Your online presence is more prominent
Long-form content gets more user engagement and shares on social media. There’s plenty of research out there indicating this. A study conducted by Buzzsumo found that 1,000-2,000-word content gets the most average shares. Not far behind, content averaging 2-3,000 words racks up consistent social media coverage and even content in the 3-10,000-word bracket gets people hitting those share buttons. It’s when the content contains up to 1,000 words that you see a significant drop in the number of times people want to share it with others.
This ties in with being known as an expert in your field. People are turning to your site, and interacting with the content because you are regarded highly in the sector you are in.
Regularly providing this type of content will continue to attract more potential customers, as users share content published on your site, across their preferred media spaces.
This is exactly the cycle you want to be caught up in. The potential ripples are mind-blowing! Take Pinterest, for instance. There are an average of 1 billion visits to Pinterest each month. Each person busily going about their business pinning away. Each pin, on average, leads to 2 page visits and 6 pageviews. That’s something to think about.
(If you’re still with me, we’re at 2,022 words and 11,869 characters. That’s around 10 minutes of reading time so far! Thanks for extending your so-called 8-second attention span this far…)
Have you got a blog yet?
The upshot is some long-form content should be a feature of every business’ website. If you haven’t already got a blog that is regularly updated on your site, sort this out and set up a blog!
Anything from 1,000-7,000 words per piece is acceptable, provided every inch of this content is relevant, useful, topical, and pertinent. One subject area may warrant an in-depth discussion that justifies many more thousands of words than another which may be covered in 2,500.
It’s good to mix it up and offer a range of content of varying length but bear in mind this content will only tick the ‘long-form content’ box of the rankings lottery if it is actually long!
We’re talking at least 1,400+ words to stand a chance of being ranked highly! Remember the data we showed you earlier?
Utilising long-form opportunities
Introduce more long-form articles into your content strategy. It doesn’t have to be just blogs. In fact, you could go long-form on pretty much anything if it is brand-relevant and captivating.
Consider producing guides, brochures or handbooks that will contribute to the knowledge available in your field. A proper long-form content project like this could be as many as 20,000 words or more!
This is a large undertaking, amounting to many more words than your average blog post, but it will help your online presence and standing within the sector immensely if you do it right. Do this periodically, becoming known for the expert literature you are sharing, and there’s every chance you will be the site your market base turns to, not only for information and advice but also as loyal customers.
Play the long game
Don’t fear long-form content. In-depth long-form content is one of the best ways to get your site featured in search results.
Useful, considered, and in-depth long-form content will remain relevant for months and years after publication. Used as a resource that can be accessed again and again, it can be evergreen and only need an occasional, annual repurposing to change time or law-specific features.
This is most definitely a feather in its bow! Long-form content can carry on producing traffic to your site, shares on social media and rankings for years after its creation with only the occasional tinker to keep it where you want it to be!
So, what are you waiting for? Get stuck in! It’s such a great opportunity to show the world the business you’re in, that you’re a market leader, an authority and an expert in your field, while at the same time, bringing more users/customers to your site and setting you up to stand a chance at being ranked up there in the top 10, bringing more users and customers to your site.
Whilst we value all our team members as, when recognition goes beyond our clients and colleagues, we know we must be doing something right!
Our very own Dora the Explorer (this will become apparent soon) known by everyone else as Anja Dolphin, was recently nominated for an SEO Rising Star award at the 2022 UK Search Awards. Arguably the most prestigious of industry awards, to see one of our own reach the final is something everyone at Chillibyte is extremely proud of.
Already, I can tell, you want to know why she’s Dora……Well, Anja loves nothing more than travelling and so far, has visited 30 countries with more trips already in the diary. Whether it be a break by a lake in France, travelling across as much of Australia as possible, or exploring a city nobody else has visited, Anja will find a way to get there and make it the best experience possible.
At work though, the focus deviates from global travel and instead becomes all about the rankings!
Let’s look at her story as our finalist for the Rising Star award.
The Nomination
As with most awards, to be a finalist, you have to be nominated, and Anja was put forward by our Head of SEO, Akash Valand. Akash has spent his career in SEO and is not only a perfectionist at getting results for clients, but also thrives on driving a team forward. Regarding Anja’s nomination, he said, “Anja was our clear stand-out rising star nominee from Chillibyte. It was very easy to choose her and put her forward. She is a credit, not only to Chillibyte but to the entire search industry, with a refreshing approach to being one of the best SEOs in a short period of time. In addition, Anja is a character who is motivated to not only prove to herself what she is capable of but to also prove herself with concrete results for her client accounts. This type of work ethic is undoubtedly motivating other members of staff in all departments.”
High praise from someone who holds themselves to such high standards is a glowing assessment, and one that Anja feels proud of. Her journey into SEO is a relatively new one, but one she has enjoyed from the start, “I started in SEO five years ago with very little experience. I had worked in digital marketing before but had done nothing so SEO-specific. Chillibyte decided to put me to the test and threw me in the deep end to see if I could swim. Luckily, I was wearing my armbands, and I’m still here! In the last five years, I have developed my content, technical, on-page and off-page SEO skills working on a variety of different sites for clients in a wide range of industries. Now, five years on, I’m the client lead on over 12 of our SEO accounts!”
It’s quite the rise and completed at a pace, indicative of how the search marketing industry works. It doesn’t slow down for anyone!
Despite these new skills and the enhanced responsibility, Anja, ever the modest one, never felt an award nomination was forthcoming, “Akash sent me a screenshot of the finalists for the award, and there was my name at the top! It was a great surprise!”
The Search Awards
The UK Search Awards 2022 were held at London’s Bloomsbury Big Top and saw the best in search go up against each other for a series of awards celebrating the industry and its successes. Competition, as we know, is fierce in search marketing, and Anja found herself up against some huge industry heavyweights. Flanked by company founder Sam Trousdale, Head of SEO, Akash Valand, and Head of Content, Amber Longhurst, the team took to their table ready to see what the night would bring.
Ultimately, it wasn’t about winning. It instead further enhanced that Chillibyte is an agency that is not only developing its own presence continuously but also that of the individuals that make it.
Unfortunately, Anja didn’t win. But this nomination is surely the first of many. Her dedication to perfecting herself and delivering for her clients and colleagues never wavers. It won’t be long before we see her receiving the accolades she deserves. Speaking after the ceremony, disco and drinks, Anja said, “It was an honour to have been considered by my company and the Search Awards. When I started this SEO journey, I’d never have thought about being nominated for an award, let alone being a finalist for one! It was amazing to be acknowledged alongside some of the best in the industry. I’m feeling incredibly grateful that I work for a company that recognises the value of its employees and celebrates success.”
Whilst the award didn’t make its way to Chillibyte HQ, the entire team is very proud of Anja for reaching this final and looks forward to seeing what award may come next!
