London is a city with an enormous number of active businesses, meaning it’s almost impossible to start a company which is completely and utterly unique, with zero competitors. For that reason, ranking organically in the search engines without proper SEO, for terms which contain the keyword ‘London’, is now extremely difficult. It was very different when KD Web first started out in 1996 when the competition was lower, but through the years we have built up the network and assets allowing us to compete for our clients all things SEO London.
This, coupled with the fact that the overwhelming majority of Google search users do not go past the first page of results, and while most of these will only look at first three to five organic results, demonstrates the necessity of a good London SEO company which can achieve as high rankings as possible for your businesses key search terms.
So what do you need to compete and how do you do SEO in London?
There are a number of ways to effectively fight for SEO London placements, and below we talk about just a few of the ways. However, it’s always best to let KD Web, an SEO company in London, do it for you, as there is a fine line between the work and the value of the links that you would be able to get yourself, or through years of negotiation and PR contacts made, and that’s where specific London SEO Agencies who have been trading for decades have the upper hand against others. There is a big difference between being on page 1 or page 2 of the results and we help clients gain that competitive SEO advantage.
Quality and relevant London SEO content
Ranking for SEO London based searches is often difficult, and to successfully manage it you need to create a website which steadily earns authority from Google, other websites and key industry influencers. To do this, you must be creating exciting, compelling, fresh content on a regular basis, which other people will want to share and link to. This is certainly not an easy task and requires dedicated time and effort.
No longer can you expect to rank for your London SEO specific keywords by stuffing them into text multiple times over. Now, thanks to Google algorithm changes, the focus is on readability and user intent, which is why the infamous phrase, both loved and loathed by SEO professionals; “content is king”, certainly rings true! Also, Your Title and description and other tags DO matter and adding London to your SEO strategy onsite will help. Just don’t overdo it.
We also recommend you have a London based address and a Google maps attached to it. Google does look at the company’s main local address, so if your main address is in London, you will already get some brownie points for your London SEO placements.
SEO London yourself with Google My Business
This one is very important for your London SEO strategy. You don’t have to pay and it can both help you rank within the map and also help your site ranking with the Keyphrase ‘London’. We would also link to your Google my Business page, boosting your site further up the results.
Hosting in London can help your SEO
Having an IP address in London or within a hundred miles or so is another helpful SEO indicator for SEO London working as a strategy. That is why we would not personally recommend companies like one and one, which has servers in places like Germany, for companies in which SEO in London is important.
Gaining authority links
In order to rank well for targeted London SEO search teams, you need to adhere to ethical SEO practices, as set up by the “Great God” that is Google. Link building is still an essential part of SEO; that is, building high-quality natural links to your website from other websites. Google views these as a sort of “thumbs-up” if you will.
The key word here is “natural” links, which means it is no longer acceptable to pay to acquire links openly or to participate in any old link schemes – those are Black Hat methods of days past and if you are caught out, Google can issue you with a dreaded penalty, perhaps de-indexing your website from the search engine rankings altogether.
It does, however, help to have other London based companies link to you, as this would give an indication to Google that local companies are in effect ‘voting’ for you. Even receiving links from slightly less relevant websites which are based locally can help for local London SEO, but you need to take great care.
In a competitive area, you need the advantage, especially if you wish to overtake other companies that have had a London SEO Agency already work for them for a long period of time. Only the knowledge and experience of multiple A/B testing with our hundreds of previous London websites and benefiting from established PR contacts and companies willing to give you links will allow you acquire that edge. That’s why it’s important to have an established London SEO Company that can also focus on performance search marketing work with you.
The years of mechanising and documenting internally what has and has not worked for SEO is important and we do know that even one or two links that we can obtain for our clients can be crucial to the boost needed to gain the competitive edge. Just a tip though - there are some online directories that can help when linked to you; some do nothing to help, while others can hinder your site. We will add you wisely and monitor for algorithmic changes as time goes by. As experts in all things SEO, we use creative, modern approaches, long established industry contacts, including many in London, and our excellent content marketing team to build a profile of high quality links from authority websites, which help clients to rank higher in London and send traffic to their website.
Why is ranking in London so difficult?
With so many local businesses attempting (sometimes badly) to carry out SEO on their websites, it is now harder than ever to rank for local keywords, such as “nail salons London” or “nail salons in London”. This is why it’s important to work specifically with a London based SEO company, which differentiates the specific and unique ways to rank locally for London based keywords, as well as having key contacts in the city. Some of those PR and SEO contacts have taken years to establish and a lot of investment financially to be able to utilise their help when required for our clients.
An SEO company which is located nearby also means you can build a stronger business partnership, while being near enough to be able to swing by for a chat and keep updated with everything that’s happening in our great city.
A tailored approach to London SEO
Every member of staff at KD Web is passionate about search rankings and understands how important SEO is for marketing your business. There is no one-size-fits all, which is why any good SEO company will be able to create a unique strategy that is tailor-made to each individual client, based on their needs, goals and business objectives.