Here is what I usually say to them about retrospective SEO and what as a business you need to focus to improve your search engine ranking:

1. You need to have UNIQUE page titles which include your keywords. No more than 65 characters long.
2. You need to include the keywords in the page heading <H1> tag
3. You need to put the keywords as close to the beginning of the first sentence.
4. You need to put the keywords and similar or related phrases in the copy. If your keyword is “Dog” then you would expect to see the words; kennel, dog lead, dog food, walkies, bone.
5. Ideally you need to have around 300 words per page to index well in the search engines. They need enough text to analyse it basically.
6. You need to put internal links from keywords to other pages in your site eg. Make the word ‘Product X’ in your text links to the page in the site called ‘Product X’.
7. Using images of your catalogue or brochure instead of typing it all in to your website has no SEO value. You need real text and separate images.
8. All images should have ALT text which should be unique and descriptive of the image. Use keywords if relevant but don’t stuff them if not required.
9. External links to good quality sites can be useful – you are providing information – but don’t use too many.
10. Add Meta Description – this is what is shown in search engine results if specified otherwise it may show the text on the page or the menu if it is just an image. You are not maximising the opportunity to describe the product featured. I like to include a phone number if possible – a call to action. No more than 165 characters long.
11. If they have added Meta Keywords in the head that’s ok but nearly all search engines ignore these – Google does. Doesn’t penalise you but no help either.
12. Write your copy for humans but remember that you need to describe it better in written text. We are lazy in our spoken words but this can be negative on your website. For example, you might say ‘This is our most popular product and it is now back in stock’ but just stop and think. What is the popular product? It is better to write ‘Our popular range of Blue Widgets are back in stock from 1st September’. The keyword ‘blue widgets’ is included and it gives some context. The previous sentence had no SEO value. Make ‘blue widgets’ an internal link to a product page about ‘blue widgets’ and you are starting to get somewhere. I hope that makes sense to everyone.

This is my list of SEO Tips for Business Startups and what I think should be done. I’m sure people will say that you should do other things and they are probably right. No list is exhaustive but I believe that these 12 points will help you improve your search engine ranking.

Another tip is to type in site:www.YOURWEBSITE.co.uk in the Google search bar and see all your SERP results. If someone searches and finds your site they will see the most relevant of these. are they maximised to sell your site or entice a click? Be honest and if you need to address your actual results then do it.

Make sure there is a strong sales message if relevant on your homepage. Think about your USP. Who are you aiming at and what are you offering? Is it clear to a website visitor?

Check to see if your pages are light on detail or information. Cutting corners on content may be ok for customers who know the products but search engines look for content, related keywords, good descriptions, images, technical information. They can only index and assess what is on the page.

For example, ask yourself is that really enough information to base a buying decision on? Does it need to be rewritten and expanded on with good keywords positioned in the right place. Is the main search term you want to be found on in the page title and in the <H1> page heading.

Also make sure you use a ‘call to action’ sign off on each page. Something like this…

If you would like to know more about the range of Blue Widgets available from Blue Widget Ltd. please call us on XXXXX XXXXXX or use the contact form provided. Samples are available upon request.

You need to make your phone number easy to find. In my experience, most people will glance at your site, decide whether they like it, ignore all the text and information you have provided and just call or email you because it is easier. Google needs the text to serve your page to a customer. Don’t think that nobody reads it – Google does and that is how they rate you.

Do this and be critical of your website. This is what you need to do to try and get more visible in the search engines. It is a good first step but there are no guarantees that it will shoot up the rankings. It should help you become more prominent in the search engines and will help you understand what you need to do.

I hope this is useful to you and I hope you enjoyed my SEO Tips for Business Startups.

At Creative Plan we have decided to focus on our Business USP which is we are Birmingham Designers for Business – Business Startups, Small Businesses and Home Businesses. We specialise in this area because we understand what it is like to run a small business, we have empathy and we know how tough it can be to get a business up and running. We support our clients, share knowledge and experience and help them make good key decisions. We look to build long-term relationships and grow with them.

There are many strong USPs out there that we see every day. Think of FedEx and their slogan “When your package absolutely, positively has to get there overnight”. It encapsulates everything you need to know. They will deliver overnight and it is a powerful and emphatic statement.

If I was to ask someone in the UK about which is the safest car I am sure they would say Volvo. If I asked what was the most reliable car again I think UK customers would remember the 1980′s advert and say VW Golf. The truth is that every new car on the road is safe and reliable but Volvo and Volkswagen ‘own’ these words in the mind of the consumer. This is called Positioning but it all stems from a good USP.

Fedex, like all good businesses, will have gone through this process to establish their USP. They will have focused on the needs of their customers and made sure their message, their USP, reinforces that they are the only choice in the minds of customers.

Step 1: Establish and Use Your Biggest Benefits
Step 2: You Need to Be Unique
You need to establish your company as the logical choice for a product or service. It can be within an Offer, Product or Guarantee.
Learning these simple techniques will improve your
Step 3: Identify a Problem or Gap in the Market
What customer needs are currently going unfulfilled. Find the performance gap, alleviate a customer’s problem and make sure you deliver.
Step 4: Be Specific and Give Prospects Proof
Give examples where you have proven yourself. Testimonials are good and very persuasive.
Step 5: Create a Clear Concise Message
Write it down, refine it and make sure it sells your product or service, establishes a problem and solves it.
Step 6: Integrate Your USP into Everything
Your USP should be the cornerstone of your business. It should be included on:

• Advertising
• Business Stationery & Business cards
• Brochures, Leaflets & Postcards
• Your “elevator pitch”
• Networking meetings
• Website
• Online Advertising

Step 7: Make Sure You Deliver Your USP
Make sure you deliver because your customer’s have been ‘promised’ something and they expect it to be delivered. Don’t ruin your reputation by over-promising and under delivering!

By going through this 7 step process you can establish your strengths and focus on satisfying the needs of your customers. Offering a product or service that they want is the key to business success. It is not about price, it is about providing the right solution, solving their problem and building a long-term relationship. A strong USP delivered consistently and effectively will help set you apart from your competitors.

But I don’t agree – and here are the reasons why…

Apps, iPhones, iPads and websites are very exciting. Showing off your latest app to a customer is great. Developing and promoting your website is vital. Making sure you invest in these areas could be very important for your business. I would never discourage that – in fact it is a big part of how I make my living!

People are interested and engaged by things they don’t know about and we all have a thirst for knowledge. These new ways of doing things are more exciting than print – but they do not necessarily replace it. They are more likely to complement your marketing activity and may be aimed at a particular niche market. A market that you may have found difficult to connect with previous marketing campaigns.

Print has been around for a long time. The fact your magazine is printed on a state of the art digital printing press is of no interest to you as a reader. It looks the same, it feels the same, it is the same! We are familiar with print. It is just there and we don’t need to know any more about it. It would be wrong to dismiss it though. My father, who is 70, doesn’t really understand the Internet, iTunes, Facebook, Twitter, iPhones and iPads. He doesn’t really want to learn about them but he’ll happily flick through a brochure or read a magazine or a leaflet. He gets his information in a different way, in more traditional formats.

I wouldn’t want you to think that it is just older people who need printed material. Imagine a salesman turning up to a meeting with a buyer from a large business. His boss is a visionary and he decides not to print a brochure. It is only available as a download on their website or as an app. The salesman turns up for one of the most important meetings of his career with half a dozen pages printed off from the office printer in his hand. He hopes the client has an iPhone so they can view the app – but they don’t. They have an Android phone so it doesn’t work. His boss has not given him the best tools for the job. Sometimes you have got to go with the most appropriate solution – and Print is tried and tested. It is often what people expect and it may not be ‘sexy’ but it might be exactly what you need.

We all love new ideas, new technology and learning new ways to do things – but sometimes the old way may still the best way. Sometimes it might just be a case of The Emperor’s New Clothes! Good creatives consider the target audience(s) and tailor their marketing material accordingly. Ignoring ‘Print’ would be a mistake because it is – and will continue to be – a very effective way to communicate your message to customers, especially when it is done well.

Next time a creative suggests doing something different for your marketing or advertising campaign, just take a moment. Make sure you consider all the options. Is it the best solution for my target market? If it is then great, but if it isn’t discuss it further. In these tough economic conditions you need to make every penny of your marketing budget work for you.

Creative Plan can help you buy your print effectively through our Print Management service. If you are interested in discussing your requirements, call 0845 643 4284 or contact us via the website.

Creative Plan created a simple and modern logo for Powered Ventilation which reflected their primary activity, which is the provision of ventilation and extraction systems. The vortex symbol helped reflect the energy and modern approach undertaken by the company.

Once the logo was agreed, stationery, leaflets and workwear were produced to reinforce the brand with customers. A simple website was put together to give an overview of their work. All their projects are bespoke so the website needed to give a flavour of the projects they work on.

If you would like more information on Powered Ventilation their website can be viewed by going to www.poweredventilation.co.uk

We can help your business. Call Creative Plan on 0845 643 4284 or contact us to discuss your requirements.

RAM also wanted to achieve higher natural listings and start to generate enquiries from the Internet more frequently. Advancements in extrusion technology and materials over the last few years has opened up many more opportunities for the use of extrusions in different market sectors. RAM Extrusion are at the forefront of technology and offer a custom extrusion service to customers who require their experience and expertise to create a unique extrusion. However, RAM Extrusion realised they had a problem…

Their logo and literature was not effective in portraying the high quality services they offered to their clients. As a manufacturer they were looking for a strong professional image that would convey the extrusion process. The logo redesign and website have been well received by their customers and their website now ranks very well on Google on specific keywords.

The next phase was to create an A5 catalogue to showcase their products more effectively. Like many businesses they had all the information available in all sorts of formats. Creative Plan created a consistent look and feel to their literature.

If you would like more information on RAM Extrusion, visit their website at www.ramextrusion.co.uk

We can help your business. Call Creative Plan on 0845 643 4284 or contact us to discuss your website requirements.

The brief was that it should allow them to showcase the many advancements made in lighting in recent months, and give them a professional presence on the Internet. They wanted to convey the large range of products available and start to generate enquiries from the web.

The site features a main slideshow area. Contact details for the business are prominent so customers can easily find the number to call. The website was required due to the excellent response to products launched by Lamp & Gear at the NEC Facilities Management show near Birmingham. Advancements in LED technology have brought about improvements in the brightness of LED lighting to complement their unquestionable energy saving capability.

The website was built using WordPress and is a custom WordPress theme. The website is now maintained in-house by the client. If you would like more information on Lamp & Gear, visit their website at www.lampandgear.co.uk

We can help your business. Call Creative Plan on 0845 643 4284 or contact us to discuss your website requirements

We created a corporate identity, literature and website for the client. Much of the site content was researched and written by Creative Plan for final client approval. We also created a business blog for industry related news. The entire site can be edited and managed by the clients using the WordPress Content Management System. They can add and change information, or write additional content themselves. This will help keep content fresh and will help their search engine presence. The website can be viewed by going to www.daycaredoctor.co.uk

As well as the website design we have created the logo and all offline material to help establish the brand through targeted marketing to specific businesses in the London area.

We can help your business. Call Creative Plan on 0845 643 4284 or contact us to discuss your project requirements.

We were able to help them and devised a simple 5 or 6 page website which fulfilled their needs. The site features prominent contact information and a selection of images of work they have carried out in and around the local area and up and down the UK. Projects that Academy Roofing have worked on include prestigious work on historical buildings in Scotland and a church and associated buildings that were damaged by floods in the Cotswolds. The use of a picture gallery means that a customer can select a specific image that they are interested in.

Online promotion using a simple Google Adwords campaign coupled with other promotional activities, such as traditional leafleting, has helped drive visitors to their website and help present a modern and professional business to potential customers and contractors.

The entire site can be edited and managed by the clients so they can add and change information, add to galleries or write content themselves.

The website can be viewed by going to www.academy-roofing.co.uk

Call us on 0845 643 4284 or contact us to discuss your requirements.

Creative Plan were able to help them and came up with a fresh and stylish theme for their website using plenty of white space to show of the product range. The colour scheme was dictated by the existing company logo.

The use of a slideshow element to each section allows the user to see the product range and options available very easily. Thumbnails also mean that a customer can select a specific image that they are interested in.

The inclusion of a Featured Artists gallery gives them the opportunity to showcase the portfolio of the creatives they work with, and actively promote them.

The entire Smart Image website was created using WordPress with a custom WordPress theme. The website can be edited and managed by the clients so they can add sections, sub-sections, galleries or news articles themselves. The website can be viewed by going to www.smartimagestudio.co.uk

We can help your business. Call Creative Plan on 0845 643 4284 or contact us to discuss your website requirements.

The look and style of the logo needed to be industrial and bold. The client suggested the use of a vivid orange or green with black. We worked through some initial ideas they had sketched out and incorporated many of the elements in the final design.

The final version of the Rite-Fix Limited logo is a simple but strong two colour design that looks great on stationery, vans, signage and workwear. The next phase is looking at their online presence, and the creation of a catalogue.

Rite-Fix Limited was a Business Startup without a huge budget for creative work, but Creative Plan managed to come up with a solution that really works. This shows that design doesn’t have to be expensive, but it has to be good.

We can help your business. Call Creative Plan on 0845 643 4284 or contact us to discuss your website requirements.