G’day folks. Thank you for visiting my Guernsey SEO website.
My name is Martin Loader and as far as I know, I am the only independent search engine optimisation expert in Guernsey.
I have been “SEO”ing my own websites to get them ranking in Google for many years now, so I decided to take the next step and start up a business to help other Guernsey Donkeys get their websites ranking in Google to benefit from the web traffic that is there.
What is SEO?
SEO, otherwise known as search engine optimisation or search engine marketing – SEM, is a phrase that is used when enhancing and improving a website which results in the website rising in the SERPs, (search engine results pages).
The search engine that most people recognise is Google, hence the term to “Google” something. Google has now become verb as well as just a search engine.
It is by far the biggest search engine and receives about 67% of all search engine searches. That is why “SEO”ers, people that implement SEO, optimise for Google because that is where the traffic is…. and also the money.
Google is a monster and constantly updating its search algorithm. This is a mathematical calculation, (set of rules), that determines exactly where a website will appear in its search results.
The art of an SEOer is to optimise a website so that it corresponds to the algorithm. You have got to give Google what it wants.
There are over 200 ranking factors that the algorithm uses to rank a website and while Google doesn’t disclose the ranking factors, there are clever people out there that can very closely reverse engineer the algorithm.
Optimising a Website.
We can definitely say that there are only two basic categories of SEO. The first one is on-page SEO and the second one is, yep, you’ve guessed it, off-page SEO.
On-page factors are things that are relating to the website itself. These are factors that we can control, such as keyword density, internal linking and anchor text, site structure, length and quality of content, dwell time, bounce rate, responsive design, multimedia, title and headings for example.
Off-page factors are things that are not actually on the website. Some of these factors are number of inbound links, quality of site that inbound links come from, velocity of building links and link anchor text.
Which is more important, on-page SEO or off-page SEO?
The answer to this is difficult as they are both vital to success. I would say that on-page SEO is the most important element. I say this because if you don’t have a website, there is not a chance that you will appear in the search results.
You need a website.
You can rank for some keywords without off-page SEO. If you just started a website and got it indexed in Google, you can rank for a keyword or search term.
Let me show you.
If you created a page on your new website that was titled “Guernsey donkey blue widgets are far better than Jersey crapaud blue widgets”, and then you had an article on your page that explained why this was in fact true, you would appear on the first page of Google for this search phrase.
Have a look at the image below.
You see that there is only 1 result for the search phrase. This is because this is the first time that it has ever been written about. At least I think so. I can’t imagine anyone else writing about this! Google would consider this page as the best page for this particular search term.
However, if you had a page titled “Guernsey” and wrote about it, you would not appear on the first page because there are thousands of websites/webpages with Guernsey as the topic.
In many regards, off-page SEO is more important because if you had a website about “how to make money online”, you would be ranked in Google at about page 28,000,000th because there are 278,000,000 results on the subject. That means over quarter of a billion websites mention this phrase.
To get onto page 1 of Google for “how to make money online”, you would need tens of thousands of backlinks, (other websites linking to your website), possibly hundreds of thousands.
Google sees backlinks from other websites to your website as a vote of confidence.
So, on-page and off-page SEO work in tandem with each other. You need on-page SEO (a website), to be on Google, but off-page SEO (backlinks) to rank on page 1 of Google to make any money.
If you are not on page 1 of Google, you will not make money from Google… Unless you pay for Adwords, Google’s own adverting system.
Why it is important to be on page 1
You just have to be on page 1. See image below.
Of course, results depend on which search phrase is being used and what niche the search is in.
The survey is just one of many surveys but most will show similar results. You can check for yourselves by searching for “Google click though rate”.
The first three positions in Google attract about 60% of the traffic for a search phrase so ideally this is where you need to be. Anywhere on page 1 is better than page 2 though.
Page 2 sucks. You will get the occasional visitor but nothing worth speaking of. As soon as you hit page 1, traffic increases.
Being on page 1 of Google is vital. The top of page one is where the money is at. The higher you rank, the more leads you will collect and more money you will generate.
Your name and brand will grow.
About ranking websites with Guernsey SEO
Although I can build websites, and may I say as good as some of the Guernsey specialist website builders that charge a fortune to make, my main gig is to drive your website up the rankings in Guernsey.
SEO is an inexact science. Every niche is different and every website is different. This means that some websites are harder to rank for than others.
I can’t say how long it will take to rank a website, it could take a month or 2, it may take a year or longer. Generally speaking though, local Google rankings are easier to rank for than a global website, or even a UK website.
In the main, I am here to deliver Guernsey SEO digital marketing for local websites. I can provide SEO for UK and global websites but this will take a very long time and cost a lot of money.
I can assume that one of the reasons you are here is to get your website rising in the Google search results. You probably either have a website that is sitting well down the results, you are in the process of getting a site built or you are thinking about getting a site made for a your business.
Having a website is the first step. If you are a brand or company that is already established and well known, you will get visitors to your website. This is because people search for your company or brand name.
But if you want to grow, you need to acquire visitors that want your service or product but aren’t searching for you company or brand.
For example, if you are a beauty salon but only appear for your company name for example “guernseyhealthandbeautynailsetc.com”, you may not appear for “Guernsey beauty salon” whereas your competitors are and they are acquiring all of the visitors that search for that term.
Your website will have to include “Guernsey beauty salon” in the title and meta description and the text on site, so your on-page SEO needs to be good.
Prices. 
At the moment, I am looking at prices that other SEO companies charge, particularly in the USA and UK because these countries are much more reliable than say India. Rates start at £60 per hour and go up to £300 per hour
I have been doing my research at other Guernsey SEO companies and one came back to me and said for a brand new medium sized website it would take over 12 months to rank for long tailed keywords. These are search terms that have a lot of words in them and are easier to rank for.
For instance, a longtailed keyword is “blue dog leads and collars in Guernsey”. This is easier to rank for than a short tailed keyword such as “dog leads” which would be much harder. The keyword “dog” would be very very very difficult to rank for because so many websites have “dog” in them.
I digress, the SEO company said that the cost would be about £4,000 to £5,000 per month plus extra for developing the website (on-page SEO) so it would have a greater chance of ranking and be easier too.
They don’t even build backlinks, they simply create content and hope that other websites link to you naturally. This could take years and years and may not even work at all. Your content has to be AWESOME for people to link to you naturally.
Another company charges for ongoing SEO of £750 per month.
This company also doesn’t actively build backlinks to your website. They also rely on naturally acquiring backlinks. Its all good in theory but it just doesn’t work. Well, it can work but you need exceptional content and it can take forever for people to link to you.
For my services, drop me an email and we can come to a price.
martin@guernseydonkeyseo.co.uk
