SEO

A balance of needs

Google looks for sites that represent authority and trust, and the best likely source to a search user’s query. Google wants to provide authoritative and trustworthy answers to those queries. Occam’s goal is quite simple; make your site match both the expectations of ‘searcher’ and in so doing, Google.

Don’t dwell on keyword rankings alone

Your sites’ dwell time is essential too. 

It’s too easy with all the tracking tools around to get fixated on ranking number one for this term or that term. Don’t get us wrong, it’s essential to have a keyword strategy, but it’s not everything. Improve your site’s dwell time is essential, as this is a direct measurement of engagement. Content that pulls visitors through a site naturally as part of an overall experience, is more likely to result in generating the conversion action you want. Great content that holds visitors attention, also gets Google’s attention, so by focusing on how ‘green your grass is’, can naturally lead to better search engine rankings.

How visitors are reached, how they interact with your online venues and how we improve that, is a large part of Occam’s SEO services.

Performance measurement

It goes without saying that tracking the performance of SEO activities is essential. One of the best ways is still by identifying essential keywords and monitoring their ranking performance. But one shouldn’t get fixated by this either. Search rankings are quite volatile. Now that Google, for instance, is using more and more artificial intelligence to uncover and understand the intent behind a search user’s query, rankings fluctuate daily depending on how a user searches. Personalised results based on the device used and location are the order of the day.

Identifying where users come from, the channels they used to reach the site, where possible the terms they used, and how they engage with the site, is just as important.

No shortcuts and no magic SEO formula

So many of Occam’s clients have come through the door with poor experiences of SEO firms. Oversold and underperforming campaigns are typical experiences, often because unrealistic expectations were accepted instead of rationalised.

There are no magic SEO formulae, not shortcuts to search engine visibility, at least not in highly competitive markets. There is only hard work and commitment to campaigns that may take between six and eighteen months to yield genuine results, depending on where you’re starting from. 

SEO is an investment in marketing, pure and simple. If you don’t have the budget and appetite, don’t hire an SEO firm, learn about it and do it yourself. Occam is a pragmatist in this sense. We will ‘transparently’ point out critical aspects of a client’s desired SEO outcome and the reality such expectations entail, i.e. time, effort and budget. 

However, no matter what your budget (within reason), we will work with clients to manage that expectation and help identify SEO strategies that may meet your budget in other ways – such as assisting you with analysis, strategy and content planning, technical SEO audits and recommendations, training, identifying and targeting more accessible keywords.