Organic SEO
The theory to great Organic SEO is to establish where you can improve upon what's already offered on the internet. If you can provide something better, faster or cheaper, then Organic SEO will mean your website can rise to the top of search rankings.
Organic SEO is the type of SEO which Warren Buffet, the renowned value investor, would be a fan of.
Organic SEO in Theory
The theory to great Organic SEO is to establish where you can improve upon what's already offered on the internet. If you can provide something better, faster or cheaper, then Organic SEO will slowly see your website rise to the top of search rankings.
Then, as you get more traffic through to your website, you can learn more about your visitors, and you can optimise your site to that traffic even more.
Sit back and relax
This keeps you at the top, and brings in 'Organic Search Traffic' to your website. If you do everything right, you can sit back and relax as people come to you!
If you'd like help establishing some Organic SEO Landing Pages on your website, please contact us and speak to an SEO expert today!
The Importance Of Search Keywords
Search keywords with 4+ words (known as “long tail”) make up 70% of the search traffic around the world, and are where it’s easiest to make ranking gains (and to convert those gains into more leads)!
Designing your site around visitors’ needs while making sure it is easily accessible to search engines usually produces increasingly positive results over the long-term.
Many firms in your sector have probably not yet optimised parts of their site for search engines which leaves the opportunity open to you to do so.
On the other hand, many of your competitors are probably ranking above you despite your company being the more established!
We can flip this balance around over time with a considered plan of attack, establishing you as the dominant provider.
Websites which rank in the top 3 spots for a search keyword see a 10-37% click through rate from search engine results pages.
This then quickly falls off to 1-2% by the bottom of page 2 (position 20).
To put this in perspective, for Coffee there are at least 246,000 monthly searches in the USA each month.
If we could raise the ranking of your website for that term to just the bottom of page 2, you could expect to see 5,000 extra monthly visitors on that term alone.
Of course, the people who search “Coffee” are less likely to buy from you compared to someone searching “Whole Beans Dark Jamaican Coffee” (if that is EXACTLY what you sell).
Search keywords like these with 4+ words (known as “long tail”) make up 70% of the search traffic around the world, and are where it’s easiest to make ranking gains, and to convert them into warm leads.
Optimising your site for a handful of popular search keywords, alongside as many 4+ word search keywords as possible should raise your incoming web traffic by a significant multiple over the next few years.
Once you’re up there on page 1 & 2, we will be able to give you the advice to keep the content super relevant, so we can keep you there!
In order to do this, we need to work with you to determine the ‘search keywords’ you want to rank well for.
We have a few suggestions for starting this process below:
Finding High Volume Search Keywords
Find 5 high volume keyword (use a tool like Search Keyword Volume Checker)
High volume Keyword 1
High volume Keyword 2
High volume Keyword 3
High volume Keyword 4
High volume Keyword 5
Long Tail Search Keywords
Now imagine how we could expand these search keywords into some “long tail” SEO landing pages in order to aim for page 1. We could do that by combining your high volume keywords with a sector or location.
As long as you don't create these in a spammy manner, and you provide valuable content to someone searching for the below terms, you'll benefit from your Search Keywords Research!
High volume Keyword 1 + Location
High volume Keyword 2 + Location
High volume Keyword 3 + Location
High volume Keyword 4 + Location
High volume Keyword 5 + Location
High volume Keyword 1 + Sector
High volume Keyword 2 + Sector
High volume Keyword 3 + Sector
High volume Keyword 4 + Sector
High volume Keyword 5 + Sector
And so on...
Your SEO Agency
We are often employed to develop and implement the technical SEO tips from a specialist SEO Agency because SEO agencies often don't have in house developers. We do it all in-house and have done since 1998.
3B are a tight team of London based tech geeks and web nerds. We design and build web apps from scratch, while offering an ongoing SEO support package alongside our technical support package.
Already have an SEO Agency?
Several of our clients have a specialist SEO agency already on the books.
In such circumstances we are often employed to implement the Technical SEO recommendations which some SEO agencies don't have the ability to implement.
We would advise any firm interested in procuring SEO services to find a firm which has both the soft SEO (content, meta tags) and technical SEO chops in their skill set.
Without both, they may be unable to optimise some of the core elements of your site's optimal SEO strategy.
Most SEO agencies will begin by doing a full site audit, then creating and implementing industry specific meta tags with popular relevant keywords.
We understand that and can get behind that sort of work, so long as the meta tags still fundamentally represent the content the user will see.
If the content isn't good enough to retain the user after they've clicked through from a search results page, then meta-tag optimisation work is as good as pouring water into a leaky bucket.
For some watertight SEO advice, please send us through your brief today.
Searching SEO Consultant London? Send Us A Brief!
Hiring us is cheaper than the cost of hiring a full-time SEO Consultant in London, yet we come with the fully rounded experience of a full-service digital agency.
We help businesses like yours to get in front of more of your potential customers.
We can come into your office and teach your writers how to publish for search engines.
We put together comprehensive SEO audits which allow us to deliver agile SEO for our clients. Agile SEO is similar to our agile development methodology.
We deliver site improvements on a monthly basis, in order of the impact it is likely to have on your inbound traffic.
Reasons to appoint us as your SEO Consultant
We are cheaper than the cost of hiring a full-time SEO Consultant, yet come with the fully rounded experience of a full-service digital agency.
We have in house web developers and graphic designers which allows us to automate some of the more painful manual tasks associated with SEO.
To the man with a hammer everything is a nail.
We don't see websites as things to be improved from an SEO angle only, we see it from all angles. This means we avoid the common pitfalls which come from hiring someone with a large amount of niche experience.
We see the bigger picture, have a greater skill set, and want to maximise output for every ounce of effort put in.
We don't see SEO as the hammer to hit every nail. It's just one of the options available to us (and to you!) in our digital toolbox.
SEO services from a London SEO firm.
We implement a variety of SEO approaches from technical SEO to the design of product-market-fit which establishes your brand and creates repeat visits to your site.
We can offer your firm specialist and informed Pros and Cons to services such as Google AMP and Facebook Instant Articles. If you can only begin using one this year which one should you use?
Tracking and Optimisation based seo
We manage pay per click campaigns in tandem with on-page optimisation testing to ensure you get the biggest bang for your buck.
We keep track of your organic keyword rankings, ensuring that each query has an optimised landing page in order to grow your organic inbound traffic.
We understand the online advertising marketplace, particularly with regards to publishing, and which platforms and demographics could bring in the best margins.
We use sites such as Optimizely to inform design decisions in order to maximise your bottom line.
Being based in London, we also invite all our clients to meet with us on a regular basis to update them on their figures, and to ensure we're all working from the same long-term plan.
We see your website as a business tool to be sharpened and honed over time, with you at the helm and us in the engine room.
London-based case studies as an SEO Consultant
Paid Advertising
Pay per click advertising is one of the simplest (and most expensive) ways to get traffic to your website.
Our Paid Advertising Services
Internet Marketing Strategies
Deciding on the right internet marketing strategy for your company can be challenging given all the information out there on the subject. We have been answering this very question since we started building websites in 1998, as a result - we hope this page helps you.
Deciding on the right internet marketing strategy for your company can be challenging given all the information out there on the subject. Google returns 3.1m results for such a search.
Given this paradox of choice, how do you go about determining the right strategy for you? We have been answering this very question since we started building websites in 1998, as a result - we hope the below helps you.
The internet is just a platform -> marketing is for people
The individual is the person who sees your brand, reads your content, forms a relationship with and ultimately buys from you. Listen to anything by UK Advertising Legend Dave Trott and enjoy a refreshing take on how marketing must not lose sight of the individual, and your product.
Forget the widgets and the platforms for a moment, they are simply a means to an end. The 'end' in this case being a potential customer learning about you and your product.
Questions to answer when formulating an internet marketing strategy
Write down answers to the following questions:
When someone first interacts with your company, what will they see?
Will this explain your product, your service, and your uniqueness?
Have you tested to see if this explanation can be improved upon?
Try using a tool like usertesting.com to get rapid answers to this!Do you understand your potential customer?
If not - do some market research! The long interview process outlined in chapter 2 of the New Business Road Test can help here. The chapter is entitled "How to learn what you don’t know you don’t know"Do you understand your current customers?
Do you know where they spend their time? Facebook? Twitter? Snapchat? Linkedin? Pinterest? Their email inbox? Whatsapp? And so on... If you can't answer this question, you need to do some research. Phone your most valuable customers and ask them how they spend their time.
Putting together an agile internet marketing strategy
An agile marketing strategy lasts for 3 to 6 months, and is revisited and tweaked as new information is gathered on the performance of each element.
We typically include the following elements in an 3-month internet marketing strategy:
Review of website content and value proposition
Page speed optimisation on your website
General site audit (following best practice guidelines)
Review of conversion optimisation opportunities
SEO Audit and scope for improvements (i.e. what content is performing well, and what are the next best steps?)
Social strategy for web backlinks, audience building and direct engagement
Paid advertising once conversion optimisation has been carried out
Send us a brief and we can help you to interweave the above elements into a coherent marketing strategy.
Useful Online Marketing Tools
Though this online marketing tool list is by no means extensive, we have provided a list of some of our favourite tools here. All are useful in terms of tracking your online presence, building your social following, providing you with marketing/user insights, or driving traffic to your website.
Though this list is by no means extensive, we have provided a list of useful online marketing tools below. They could be useful in terms of tracking your online presence, building your social following, providing you with marketing/user insights, or driving traffic to your website.
A list of some of our favourite Online Marketing Tools
Convertkit
Everliker
Facebook Ads
Facebook Pages
Google Adwords
Google Analytics
Google My Business
Google Sheets and the Add-Ons and Power Tools which come with it which allow us to do web scraping, and some free SEO analysis
Google Webmaster Tools\
Hootsuite
Hubspot
Instagram
LinkedIn
Mailchimp
Mailgun
MetaSEOInspector Google Chrome Extension
Niche online communities
Optimizely
Pinterest
Reddit
Screaming frog
Scrutiny
Sendgrid
The Squarespace Blog and Analytics apps for iPhone and Android
Twitter
Visitorqueue
Zendesk's help centre
The real win is getting the above tools to talk to one another in order to provide maximum value to us and to our clients.
If you'd like to discuss integrating some online marketing tools with your sales pipeline, please contact us!
Project Management
From research to planning, design, development, training, deployment, launch and support, we have the project management processes in place to robustly handle a project of any size.
We are a technology-led digital agency specialising in deploying Open Source web solutions, delivered in an agile project management environment. We adopt 'Scrum' methodology as a means of ensuring total project transparency between all departments. This allows for faster and more collaborative design and development internally and with the client.
We are heavily immersed in cloud-based management tools – this ensures complete transparency with the client with respect to hours spent, feature prioritisation & communication.
We work with the client initially in a consultative or business development capacity, to best understand their business model, company goals and processes. This allows us to establish key aims for the project with the client, against which the success of the project can be measured.
The web is a changing environment and our ideal customer relationship will most-often begin with a project, but continues long-term and evolves as their needs and business grow. We have a number of very happy clients we have served for many years.
Our Project Management Process
Research & analysis
in-depth meeting with client
establish business objectives
segment audience into user groups
obtain assets
Planning
specify deliverables, stakeholders, timeline, expectations
project scope document for signoff by client
establish metrics by which to measure success of project against business objectives
quality assurance
produce information architecture
Design
iterative process of wireframing, HTML prototypes
establish design rules, brand guidelines, typography
assess user interface and user experience aims
obtain feedback from client
Development
agile process encourages change and flow
constant client feedback through iterations with regular deliverables
documentation of code
testing: unit testing, user experience testing, acceptance testing
Change Management
problem reports which identify bugs which must be fixed
system enhancement requests "now I'm seeing this I'd like to suggest that we add this feature too".
Training
access to 3B's online knowledgebase
custom guides for each client - text, images, screencast videos as appropriate
face-to-face training
Deployment
best practice
50+ "pre flight checks" prior to launch (security, SEO, speed optimisation etc)
SEO submissions to search engines (automated sitemaps etc)
Launch
assist client with press releases
case study for open source community
universal praise!
Maintenance & support
ongoing access to knowledgebase and support portal - online, email, phone support
security updates to web software
managing changes in underlying structures and or standards (e.g. a new operating system, platform or regulation such as GDPR)
Please note that we do not and will not outsource any of the effort involved in any design or development project.
When you use our support portal, or call the office here in London, you will be dealing with the designers, developers and project managers directly involved with your project.
Drupal Developers
Getting Drupal developers involved in your Drupal build would be wise. As a strong contender for an long term and enterprise-grade content management system, it continues to scoop high profile builds one after another.
Drupal is a strong contender as an investment in an enterprise-grade content management system. It continues to scoop one high profile build after another.
An excellent example of a Drupal website is BBC Good Food, a social cooking platform.
Drupal developers rapidly build sites which are flexible, dependable and scalable.
Drupal websites benefit from an increasingly powerful array of feature-filled modules available to plug in directly to your website.
With front-end editing and admin skins, the interface is very user friendly.
It's a more intelligent version of the widely-used Wordpress CMS, favoured by grown-up companies wanting to build and scale their own custom features with ease.
Drupal requires custom development help in order to best utilise the powerful database, to 'featurise' custom modules, and to tweak the complex system underlying a Drupal build. This shouldn't put you off, however. It is this very factor which makes Drupal such a clever choice for an enterprise-grade website.
Drupal is the platform which doesn't shy away from mad ideas, and it doesn't break the bank either!
There are situations in which a Drupal site can be built without a developer on hand, but these are few and far between.
A word of warning: Drupal site builds can be attempted by someone with a reasonable understanding of the web (think html, css, javascript and php). In such cases the site is often built without regard for ‘best practice’ and something as simple as a database error can crash the whole site and render it irrecoverable.
It's for this reason that site back-ups come as standard with any 3B Drupal projects!
Drupal development services we offer
We follow industry-tested best practice processes regarding Drupal builds at 3B which means we can offer the following Drupal development services to you:
Custom features/modules
Custom search with Algolia
3rd party image hosting with Cloudinary
Custom and fully responsive template
Installation and configuration of best practice Drupal modules
Honest advice on whether Drupal 7 or Drupal 8 is right for you
Wordpress to Drupal migration
Joomla to Drupal migration
Drupal to Drupal migration from 6 to 7 or 7 to 8
Magento to Drupal migration
Umbraco to Drupal migration
Search optimised websites
Multi lingual websites
Membership based and social network style websites
Learn more about what Drupal is!
Our Drupal work
If you would like us to cost up a Drupal build for you please contact us today.
General email: info@3bweb.com
Support email: support@3bweb.com
Tenders email: tenders@3bweb.com
Telephone: 0844 414 0906 (from the UK)
+44 20 7223 3390 (from abroad)
Joomla Developers
We are Joomla Developers. Since Joomla! was released back in 2005, the web developers here at 3B have been in among the founders helping to suggest tweaks and improvements to the benefit of our clients.
Since Joomla! was released back in 2005, the geeks here at 3B have been in amongst the founders helping to suggest tweaks and improvements to the benefit of our clients.
Joomla 1 now seems like an age ago, and even though we still have some fond Joomla 2 memories, we are absolutely on board with Joomla 3.
The two are reasonably representative examples of the sort of organisations for which Joomla is appropriate. Squarespace is simpler, and Drupal is more powerful, yet Joomla sits somewhere in between as an ideal CMS for schools, member sites, and associations.
Learn more about what Joomla is!
Our Joomla websites:
Do you need a Joomla Developer?
If you'd like to discuss whether Joomla is the right CMS for you, please don't hesitate to send us a brief, or just give us a bell.
Search Engine News - What To Read And What Not To Read
SEO News happens so fast that you can't rely on one resource. We would therefore recommend subscribing to the following sources of SEO news sources.
We love books here at 3B on business, design and marketing strategy. However, books on SEO are often outdated by the time they're published!
SEO News happens so fast that you can't rely on one resource.
We would therefore recommend subscribing to the following sources of SEO news sources.
Data security & gdpr regulations
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - written about, debated, chewed over and overtly panicked about - is an exciting opportunity to manage your data properly once and for all.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - written about, debated, chewed over and overly panicked about - is an exciting opportunity to manage your data properly once and for all.
The new GDPR regulation is the most radical change to data privacy and security legislation in the last 22 years. If you’re running a business that involves keeping data on EU residents, it’s worth making sure you’re compliant with the new regulation to avoid the fine of up to 4% of worldwide turnover.
The deadline to be compliant with the new GDPR regulation was 25th May 2018, if you missed this - don’t panic - read our advice articles below.
The GDPR directive was updated to reflect the reality of our present digital era. The internet and wide use of social media for leisure (and increasingly business) has transformed how people live and work. Free services are offered to you in exchange for heaps of your personal data. Tricking you into accepting baffling terms and conditions used to be enough to collect and store personal data but from now on companies can’t do that without consequences.
Reasons for the new rules are the increased number and magnitude of data breaches over the past few years. GDPR regulations aim to make types of data collected and its purpose transparent for consumers like you and me. Consent has to be easy to understand and access (hence no more “do not tick this if you want to NOT receive emails from us”). Withdrawal of permission to process any personal data must be made easy.
Data Protection Fines and Sanctions
The fine for not being compliant with certain GDPR articles could go up to €20M or to 4% of your annual revenue depending on which is greater. The potential fine is huge to emphasise the importance of securing any data you hold from breaches and cyber-attacks.
Storing your data securely must be a priority for a business of any size. You must make sure that the data you hold can only be accessed by authorised personnel. Any unnecessary data should be deleted straight away, likely in accordance with a data retention policy.
The conditions for deleting data could be twofold:
The data is not relevant anymore given the original purpose of collection
Consent has been withdrawn by the individual concerned
A person has a right to access data stored on them including how their data was collected, the purpose of collection, ways of processing, and storage duration.
GDPR regulation involves businesses of any size
Security and encryption can be affordable and simple for small or medium-sized businesses given the many helpful tools available.
Your next step would be to determine how GDPR applies to you exactly, and to identify which changes are required to become GDPR compliant asap. A security breach may happen for a number of reasons. Computer viruses, system failures or cyber attacks, to name a few. Once your device is online, anywhere at all, you should be considering how your data is at risk.
3B Digital can ensure that you are compliant both at the point at which your customers’ data is recorded and ongoing. Rest assured that if you are well aware of your data management obligations, with us watching your back, you're in safe hands.
Our Data Security Team
NOTE that 3B Digital Ltd is a technical delivery house; we are not lawyers and our advice and guidance - especially in matters relating to data security and the like should be subject to legal review and approval.
Corporate ID & Branding
Our offering includes logo IDs, brandbooks & guides and style sheets applicable to both print and digital platforms.
Very often we get to work with clients on their core branding and ID - they might be a startup enterprise in the very early days of their existence or a well established corporate brand with a need to simply refresh for the digital age.
Either way we can bring our broad and deep brand experience to bear when brainstorming and presenting our ideas.
Our offering includes logo IDs, brandbooks & guides and style sheets applicable to both print and digital platforms.
The following is a brief but representative snapshot of the sort of work that we do in this area.
Live Streaming Video and Audio & 4K Productions
We help clients with every aspect of online video and audio, providing camera crews, film editors, composers and directors, through to hosting these highly shareable "Social Objects" and displaying them live in the site and across Social Media profiles.
We help clients with every aspect of online video and audio, providing camera crews, film editors, composers and directors, through to hosting these highly shareable "Social Objects" and displaying them live in the site and across Social Media profiles.
Our portfolio features video from many sources, including live webcam feeds, customised YouTube TV Channels as part of a strategic marketing campaign and even live high definition professional videos.
Squarespace / Brochure sites
Our lead developer Jordan brought Squarespace to our attention – a beautifully configured (but thankfully not hugely configurable) cloud-based CMS that has proved revelatory to both us as well as the many clients already benefiting from it.
Whether we like it or not the simple fact is that no one Content Management System (CMS) fits every conceivable client requirement, but nevertheless the vast majority of those available – off-the-shelf or Open Source – are loaded with far more functionality than most clients are ever likely to need.
This of course adds bloat to both the project lifecycle and cost and so for a long time 3B were actively looking for a simple, elegant, rapid-fire and cost-effective CMS that we could exploit for the many instances where enterprise level platforms were just not appropriate.
What we needed was a beautiful & lean CMS upon which we could deliver “brochure sites” quickly & cost effectively.
Our lead developer brought Squarespace to our attention – a beautifully configured (but thankfully not hugely configurable) cloud-based CMS that has proved revelatory to both us as well as the many clients already benefiting from it.
Squarespace main features are:
It is extremely reasonably priced, and the relationship between the client and the technology can be, once the design / build project is complete, direct. This saves costs (in terms of any mark-up we might have added to paying maintenance fees) as well as meaning that a client can easily take their site and “run for the hills” if they don’t wish to be tied to an agency service contract.
Delivering a Squarespace site requires very little / no involvement from our Development Team; with the odd exception when we might need a code snippet from the Dev Team these sites are pretty much left to the Design Department to design, build & deliver. This means that in most cases we can jump on a project immediately and deliver new websites often within days.
The sites are immediately - and beautifully - responsive “out of the box” - again saving enormous development costs.
Squarespace offer 24/7 direct support included in the subscription fees.
Squarespace has a small but broad range of templates available in their library from which we can always choose the most appropriate “look & feel” with very little adjustment from us - again saving huge design and development costs.
Squarespace sites are perfectly optimised for SEO and we have an established list of Best Practice tasks that we carry out with every deployment to make sure that we’ve optimised the site as far as possible pre-launch.
