Knowledge base - SEOgroup can do

Time for a summary of 2021 by SEOgroup

14 February 2022/0 Comments/by Michał Herok

Time for a summary of 2021 by SEOgroup – a company specializing in digital marketing services. It is a bit later than in the case of most companies that wrote about it, i.e. at the turn of December and January, but it results from the fact that we were waiting for the final closing of the year in terms of accounting and collecting all the information in this regard.

So what has been achieved? The 13th year of SEOgroup is a historic year in the company’s history!

We have become the second best agency of this type (SEO + Performance Marketing) in the world in the most important competition in the industry we represent – Global Search Awards – in the BEST GLOBAL SMALL INTEGRATED SEARCH AGENCY category.
Our achievements for clients have been noticed by the jury of such competitions as: Global Search Awards, European Search Awards or Performance Marketing Diamonds CEE 2021.

We became the co-organizers of the world’s first such charity event: “We play for Frank” at the 31 Tactical Air Base Poznań-Krzesiny, i.e. the F-16 base in Krzesiny (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64wPpHLCvfI)

For the first time in the company’s history, after 12 years of its operation, we launched SEOgroup Academy workshops, carrying out two editions. They were well received by the participants, as confirmed by their ratings (https://www.seogroup.pl/szkolenia).
Takumi 匠 SEOgroup of 2021 was Terenia Herok – New Business Director for the fact that for the first time in the thirteen-year history of the company she achieved a greater sales volume in SEOgroup than its founder – Michał Herok!

The result of all this is the following numbers that seem to be self-defending:

net revenues for 2021 at the level of PLN 3,915,715,
an increase in the company’s revenues by 30% Y2Y,
net profit for 2021 at the level of PLN 680,082,
increase in the company’s profit by 944% Y2Y,
Thus, the company’s net profitability in 2021 was 17.36%.

We consider this results as a huge success, because there are 15 people in our company. Therefore, we feel that we know how to squeeze the maximum potential out of us, which at the same time translates directly into above-standard values for the client. Importantly, the end result is completely authentic, because it takes into account the full payment of owner / CEO salaries, if it were not for this, it would be even higher. The entire dividend, however, as every year from the moment of transformation into a joint-stock company (2018), will be allocated to the supplementary capital.

Many companies strongly emphasize their results solely on the basis of increasing revenues, completely unnecessarily. It has nothing to do with what is most important in business – profit, without which business does not exist, so as SEOgroup we present it in full. All this would not be possible without the trust of our clients and the merit of the huge commitment and work of the entire team – Takumi 匠 SEOgroup. The fact is, you can achieve anything with the SEOgroup!

After such a year, it is hard to get a better motivation to continue action, which will result in two real bombs that we are preparing and which will be loud when they appear, because they will bring huge benefits to customers who will use them, and which currently do not exist in Poland nor in the world. So keep your fingers crossed for their quick launch, because we are looking forward to it ourselves!

Thank you!
Arigatōgozaimashita!
ありがとう

#SEOgroup #cando #seo #performancemarketing #digialmarketing #digiatalagency #business #marketing

At SEOgroup, we are not slowing down!

14 February 2022/0 Comments/by Michał Herok

At SEOgroup, we are not slowing down!

Recently, our Takumi participated in a number of industry training courses, completed with positively passed exams!

Congratulations to the following people:

Michał Herok – CEO of SEOgroup – proud holder of the DIMAQ Professional certificate

Terenia Herok – New Business Director – happy holder of the DIMAQ Basic certificate,

Mateusz Szynalewski – Performance Marketing Specialist – deserved winner of the Meta Certified Media Buying Professional certificate

Jakub Grabowski – Performance Marketing Specialist – a content winner of the Google Partners program certificates

Grzegorz Żaczek – Client Success Manager – satisfied holder of the DIMAQ Basic certificate,

Aneta Rudniak – Client Success Manager – beaming holder of the DIMAQ Basic certificate.

Thanks to the continuous development of our competences, acting in accordance with our philosophy of Kaizen (カイゼン), every day we improve the quality of our services to provide you with the most effective and the best solutions.

SEOgroup – can do!

Wesołego Kurisumasu (クリスマ) życzy SEOgroup

Happy Kurisumasu! (クリスマス)

24 December 2018/0 Comments/by SEOgroup

We wish You a Happy Kurisumasu (クリスマス) ????

Expander joined the group of SEOgroup Clients

4 December 2018/0 Comments/by SEOgroup

We are extremely pleased to announce that the brand Expander – Financial Expert, leader in providing the best financial solutions in Poland – mortgage loans, cash loans, investments and corporate finance services joined the group of our Clients. The SEOgroup agency will be responsible for comprehensive brand service in the field of SEO services.

Takumi 匠 SEOgroup thanks you for your trust ??⛩

Expander

Conclusions

The sponsored links campaign proves to be a superb option for those who quickly want to distinguish their website on the first page of Google search results. These types of actions allow to reach the most promising Customers at the moment when they search with a phrase related to the promoted offer. This is a perfect method to advertise both regular services and special promotions in a successful way. However, we should remember to observe the effectiveness of our campaigns on an ongoing basis, both at the configuration and when making reasonable decisions related to optimisation. Communication with the Customer and adjusting the strategy of actions to the desired results is of paramount importance in this case.

What to do when your phrases have dropped on Google?

8 November 2018/0 Comments/by Wojciech Władziński

Have you ever come across a situation where the phrases you had positioned dropped in the search results unexpectedly? There may be a lot of reasons behind this, and today we will attempt to show various factors which might have had an effect on such a condition as well as suggest some step-by-step solutions.

The first step you should take is to verify if the position monitoring shows a factual drop. Refresh the positions to do so. Next, make sure that the proxies added to the monitoring are not banned by Google and whether they perform their role if possible. In addition, make an attempt to confirm the drop by means of another monitoring tool. Also, try to verify the position manually in an incognito mode (CTRL + SHIFT + N for Chrome). However, please remember that Google results are highly personalised, based on the IP location/address, browsing history, keyword search history, etc. Do not forget that slight position variations are completely natural as well.

In the next step, move on to the Search Traffic => Search Analytics tab in the Google Search Console tool. Find the phrase of your interest, check the “Position” checkbox and verify if any drops have taken place. The results for a phrase that is stably ranked in the first position in the search results are presented below.

If all the tools demonstrate that the phrases have dropped, it is worth verifying which factors may have affected their positions. The factors presented below have been divided into on-page (within the website) and off-page (outside the website) actions.

1. Off-page

1.1. Keywords

Verify which phrases may cause position changes. This will help you establish if the possible issue is related to the whole website or e.g. one section only. Carrying out further steps, focus on these particular phrases/subpages, at least at the
Verify if there is no cannibalisation taking place. It happens that two or more rival subpages adjusted for identical phrases may exist and compete, which is why Google displays different URLs on different positions.

1.2. Search results

Verify if the result type in the SERP has changed. The drop may take place because e.g. Google had previously displayed company websites for a given phrase, but at present there are mainly advice articles.
Verify what data is displayed in the title and description in the search results, if it corresponds with data displayed in the page code, and if the tags are not duplicated on a mass scale.
Check whether the URL is displayed correctly and if this is a page that has previously ranked according to the given phrase. Search for e.g. pagination subpages or URLs with parameters, such as domena.pl/strona/3 or www.domena.pl/nazwa-kategorii?color=blue&size=m.
Using the “site:domena.pl” command, verify what types of results appear in the list. If there are URLs e.g. containing custom characters (Russian, Chinese) or non-standard parameters, this may indicate that your website has been hacked.

Verify if the list contains the most important URLs and if the index includes subpages adjusted to the given phrases.

2. On-page

2.1 Availability
- Verify tags related to meta=”robots” robot. Check if there are any “noindex” tags. More on this topic: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93710?hl=pl.
- Check the directives from the robots.txt file and make sure that the subpages are not blocked for robots. Search Console => Scanning => robots.txt file tester. The correct message after verifying the address is provided below:

Sprawdź czy treści znajdujące się na podstronach nie duplikują się zewnętrznie lub wewnętrznie.

2.2 Canonical tags

Verify if canonical tags appear, and if they are used and located correctly.
Verify if canonical tags are added correctly to the pagination subpages, filtering, etc.
More on this topic: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066?hl=pl.
Make sure that the subpages that are landing pages only appear under a single URL.

2.3 Status codes

Check if the previous redirection settings have changed.
Verify if redirects work properly, if the code of the desired redirect is returned and if there is a redirect loop.
Make sure that the landing pages return code 200.

2.4 Google Search Console

Verify if Google has reported any irregularities to you in the message section.
Check if you have received a manual penalty. Search Traffic => Manual Actions.
Confirm if the drops in the monitoring are reflected in GSC, as mentioned at the beginning of this article.
Go to the Scan => Indexing Errors tab and analyse the indexing errors.
Verify how Google renders a subpage in the Indexing => Indexing Errors => Download as Google tab.
Verify the indexing status, since a sudden drop may indicate technical issues; Google Index => Indexing status.
Does Google report any security issues?

Summary

The most common factors that may influence the drop in the positioned phrases have been listed. However, some of the steps required to improve this state involve advanced SEO-related knowledge, which is why it is definitely worth referring to professionals who will guide you and make your website go back to the previous positions.

Do positioning and SEO actions mean the same thing?

8 November 2018/0 Comments/by Wojciech Władziński

SEO and positioning are terms that have been circulating in the world of marketing concepts for many years. Sometimes they are used interchangeably and as synonyms. In today’s article, we will attempt to answer the question whether positioning and SEO represent the same concepts.

At the beginning, let us talk about the general definitions of these terms:

In brief, SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) strictly concerns optimising websites for search engines. These activities are undertaken in order to achieve qualitative traffic and increase visibility aimed at acquiring potential Customers. This results from the fact SEO is closely related to on-site activities, i.e. technical and useful aspects of the website (improving the code or design/layout, navigation, internal linking, loading speed, etc.) as well as content present on the website.

SEO as explained by Google.

Source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35291?hl=pl

Positioning is a term coined in Polish marketing, defining a range of actions performed for the purpose of increasing organic traffic (free traffic from search engines) on the website. Positioning includes website optimisation, acquisition of links (through Content Marketing, Whisper Marketing, etc.) or online analytics.

SEO is a part of positioning

Both terms refer to search results and the website’s ranking in search engines. Although they share a common goal, different types of actions are included within their scopes. It can be stated without a doubt that SEO constitutes a part of positioning

As the opinions regarding this issue are still divided, many specialists would not agree with such an approach. Perhaps the reason for treating SEO and positioning as synonymous terms is because of the same goal of achieving a high and stable position in the search results, shared by both of these concepts.

Content marketing and SEO – how can we combine these actions?

8 November 2018/0 Comments/by Bartosz Malinowski

These days, virtually every company ought to carry out wide-ranging actions on the Internet, as this is probably where your Customers can usually be found. Apart from some obvious solutions, including various banner ads on websites, you may consider a strategy called content marketing. Although people who are not online marketing experts frequently treat these actions as “ordinary articles with links”, today we will give you an idea why this proves to be a valuable tool not only for the purposes of building the brand image, but also for positioning our website in search engines!

What’s it all for?

Above all, we should understand what the aims of both content marketing and SEO actions are. The former constitutes a very modern tool for attracting Customers to our website and making them committed to us through publishing valuable content, while the task of the latter (search engine optimisation) is to optimise our website and make it achieve the highest positions in the search results. Although these two aspects seem totally unrelated to each other, the truth is quite different!

How should we create content?

Developing content that is not only unique, but also optimised in relation to the requirements of search engine algorithms is the key to success in both areas. We may prepare even the most excellent and outstanding article, but if we ignore the issue mentioned above, it will not achieve such a high position when searched by potential Customers. But what will happen if we decide to copy some content from another website, trusting that there is low probability that the user will come across both of them after all? We couldn’t be more wrong!

On the contrary, we can do more harm than good! If Google detects that our text constitutes a copy of another content, it will be marked as “duplicate content” and fail to give us any benefits. We also should not forget about the risk of losing our reputable image, as copying any kind of content is rather perceived as regrettable. Therefore, there is no point undertaking such actions.

Optimisation of developed content

However, if an article or a post we have written is noteworthy and can be considered compliant with the principles of content marketing, it is definitely worth paying attention to optimisation-related actions! Google rewards rich content, which should not only be understood in terms of the article’s length, but other “upgrades” as well. Apart from the textual layer itself, including relevant photos (which should be appropriately optimised, too), or films and quotes may turn out to be a great step. Not only will the user consider such content more appealing, but also the text will be treated as more valuable according to the Google algorithm. When it comes to SEO actions regarding the article, it will not be such a challenging task if we only have specific keywords for which the text is supposed to be positioned. Aspects such as appropriate meta tags, formatting, bolding or headlines are fundamental… yet, this is a topic for another article!

Your benefits

The aim of an appropriately positioned content marketing article is to increase traffic on the website, but at the same time, it can be useful in building brand awareness and, above all, authority! If our content is displayed as the first (or one of the first) in the search results according to the SEO principles, we will impress the majority of users almost instantly. Such an article will be regarded as valuable even before reading! However, we should bear in mind that it should get the user involved right after clicking, so writing on very general and most often clichéd topics should be avoided. Instead, let’s concentrate on our target group and attempt to reach these users in particular. Who knows? Perhaps they will visit your website and familiarise themselves with your company’s offer just after reading your post?

Conclusion

Actions carried out together in the area of content marketing and SEO have one purpose, which is to increase the conversion. If our website contains valuable and distinctive content, Google will certainly reward us, while our actions and sharing on social media will lead to highly attractive results. We can be sure that such consistent and synchronised actions will help us with all the issues mentioned above. However, we must not forget about the most important aspect – joining content marketing with SEO actions does not act like a sprint supposed to provide instantaneous sales results, but it rather resembles a time-consuming marathon, the effects of which will be noticed in the long run!

The third headline in Google Ads text advertisements

8 November 2018/0 Comments/by Katarzyna Beringer

A new Google Ads dashboard presents the advertisers with a range of new functionalities, one of which is certainly the possibility to modify text advertisements by adding an extra third headline, a second advertising text as well as using up to 90-characters due to the expanded text ads. This change is indicated with an alert which appears in the dashboard automatically.

The modification of the sponsored links form is taking place gradually, as extended text ads have been made available for all advertisers recently. Google aims at distinguishing advertising texts and making them dominate the SERP, thus getting the users involved in developing new and lot more attractive campaigns. Let us not forget that along with keywords and landing pages, the text ad quality constitutes one of the Quality Score elements, which is why this change affects optimisation of existing and new creations so powerfully.

However, the structure of text ads in the search network remains identical, still consisting of three parts: the headline, the displayed URL and the advertising text.

Headlines

Undoubtedly, these constitute the most essential advertising element which users pay attention to. It is necessary for the headline to contain a keyword directly corresponding to the user’s query. Today, advertisements contain three headlines displayed next to one another and separated with a vertical bar (|). The elements do not rotate, and each of them consists of a maximum of 30 characters. On mobile devices, the third headline can move to the ad’s second row because of its length. However, Google warns that this extra option may not always be visible, depending on the performance of the algorithm which takes the potential effectiveness of the ad into account.

The third headline enables a much more visible display of non-standard advantages of a product or service. Using the full potential offered by this tool to encourage the user to click on your offer is definitely worthwhile.

Displayed URL

A URL under which the ad is displayed is an indispensable element, be it a product subpage or a dedicated landing page, which visually corresponds the graphic design of the promoted offer and to other advertising banners used at the same time. The choice of the landing page translates into the Quality Score obtained, and thus the user query matching accuracy. The offer ought to strictly refer to keywords used in the campaign and include phrases with searches used in the content in a natural way. Technically speaking, the displayed URL is the only element in green, which consists of the final URL’s domain, while additional elements include two Paths, which are supposed to refer to the website that the user will be redirected to after clicking. Optional fields do not need to directly match the address displayed, which makes it another perfect place for distinguishing priority phrases. Google informs that the descriptions may not always be displayed, as in extended text ads the Paths can contain a maximum of 15 characters each.

Source: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1704389?hl=pl

Advertising text

A key element is the ad description, currently consisting of two fields, each of which contains 90 characters and where the second field is displayed optionally. This makes a considerable difference from previous settings for extended text ads, which used to have a single description containing only 80 characters! An increased text limit enables the advertiser to create extensive ads, describing the advantages of products and services in detail, as well as distinguishing their special characteristics. However, advertising must also include a call to action adjusted to what the user is supposed to carry out, e.g. “Buy now”, “Check availability”, “Request a quote”, “See prices”, etc.

Previous panel of extended text ad edit

Ad extensions

Other extension options, such as links to subpages, information concerning the website and extensions of descriptions or locations, allow to add even more information to your ad and beat your competition in this way. The advertiser may use this additional option in order to sneak in some specific features of their products or information related to attractive discounts and offers, thus actually increasing the CTR of their ads. Ad extensions constitute an essential element of any Google Ads text campaign, activating the users and impacting positive evaluation of the advertised business.

Taking advantage of the full potential of text advertising, the advertiser has a limit up to 300 characters at their disposal, which is identical in all languages! It appears that the last piece of the puzzle is the advertiser’s creativity. This new advertising format is worth putting into practice, since not all older creations have been refreshed yet. Practically, adding incomplete elements is often sufficient. In the case of larger accounts, the Google Ads Editor already provides the option of editing the third headline.

When creating new advertisements, we should not forget about suitable gradation and ordering information that ought not to be duplicated. Carrying out tests still remains the best method of identifying the most effective headline or description. In this context, tools available in the new Google Ads dashboard version enabling advertisement variation testing will work out best. The ad preview and diagnostics tool facilitates verification of the text’s appearance in the search results without distorting the statistics of ad views and clicks. The Customers themselves have been using this tool more and more eagerly as well.

Link Building – how does it affect SEO and how to carry it out safely?

8 November 2018/0 Comments/by Łukasz Banaszczak

Link Building constitutes one of the chief marketing techniques applied in SEO, thanks to which we are able to build a set of strong external links leading directly to our website, strengthening it and ensuring that its position in the search results improves. Among several Link Building techniques, the most popular ones include Content Marketing and Buzz Marketing.

How does Link Building affect SEO?

We can say that apart from optimisation, Link Building influences SEO and the position of our website in the search engine in the most powerful way. The more links lead to our website, the higher positions in the rankings it will achieve. Obviously, we must take other factors into account, such as the domain’s age, content published on the domain, the method of linking, etc. Yet, external links acquired by means of Link Building techniques supply our website with the greatest power from outside.

How to link in a secure way?

If we want to make sure that Link Building will take place successfully, we must follow the main security principles. Above all, we must not spam with links by means of programmes and tools designed for this purpose, as our website can be exposed to a Google penalty, preventing it from reaching the desired high positions in the search engine ever again. On the other hand, such penalties are observed less and less frequently, as the algorithm has practically stopped taking very low-quality links from “suspicious” sources into account. We can draw clear conclusions from this situation, namely: using linking spam bots is both a waste of time and a loss of money.

However, the question remains in what way the links should be placed, as an appropriate method can influence the power of the produced links. To be precise, it should be considered whether the link will be placed using an anchor, the URL to the home page or subpage itself or in the form of a graphical reference, a linked source, etc. We must remember that the way of placing the link should look as natural as possible as well as encourage the users to click on it at the same time. Moreover, actions related to Link Building should be diversified, which we will talk about further on.

When it comes to linking with the help of anchor text, we should pay particular attention to the most commonly made mistake, namely an excessive use of the so-called “exact match anchor links”, i.e. linking with identical words that our website is positioned to and writing articles so that a given phrase fits into the text perfectly, which looks even bizarre at times. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with this linking method, however, it should be carried out skilfully and not overdone with regard to the number of anchors. There should be much fewer anchors than regular URL-based links or ones added together with the brand’s name. It is also vital to decide on the proportions of anchors used and URL links in an appropriate way. In this case, we can change keywords according to the context and the meaning of the given word so that the linked phrase appears as natural as possible.

Sources of links

The types of websites from which we acquire links are also extremely important, including:

– general-interest / information portals

– thematic portals

– blogs

– Internet forums

– and supply bases

Obviously, the best source of links to our website can be found on thematic portals, i.e. websites whose content closely reflects the industry within which the linked website operates, as the relevant articles published on such portals prove to be the most powerful. It is clear that apart from the suitable theme, such a portal must be appropriately optimised for SEO, have the largest traffic and a reasonable number of links directing to the website. These parameters can be evaluated most effectively by means of tools such as Ahrefs or Senuto, which will demonstrate approximately what keywords-based traffic a given portal is characterised with. Yet, the most crucial aspect in choosing such a portal is taking actions in accordance with your own experience and common sense.

Comments on forums and blogs

Apart from publishing sponsored articles on blogs, it is also possible to leave comments under already existing articles related to the theme of our website as well as in threads on Internet forums. However, in half the cases, such links contain the “nofollow” parameter, i.e. they are not powerful at all. Fortunately, all is not lost. This type of links will come in handy in diversifying and increasing the number of domains linking our website. Ideally, if there is large traffic on the blog, our comments are capable of transferring a small part of this traffic to our website.

Link diversification

We must also bear in mind that the links to our website should not derive only from one source, such as Internet forums, because we will fail to achieve a high-quality effect in such a case. The link profile ought to look natural and remain as diverse as possible. What we also mean here is the scripts on which the websites are based – for instance, if it is only WordPress, it is virtually obvious that most links derive from private supply bases.

Conclusion

As we can see, Link building has a tremendous impact on SEO and no one can deny this fact. In order to carry it out in a secure manner and not to be exposed to Google penalties, we should follow the aforementioned principles, and above all, we should never go over the top with the number of links on low-quality websites diverging from our website’s theme.