Wordpress SEO Expert

Improve your Google ranking with 24-year experienced SEO professional Peter Mahoney

  • SEO Overhaul
  • SEO Campaign
  • WP Support
  • Blog
    • SEO Emails
  • Praise

Don’t just search for yourself!

May 22, 2022 by Peter Mahoney

This is actually a stock answer I send people pretty often. I’m regularly asked about the difference between where a client sees themselves in rankings, or their friend, kid’s football coach, etc.

You shouldn’t search for yourself as a way to measure your ranking

Google does all kinds of personalisation on your search results (based on your network’s IP address, if you’re logged into any Google accounts, even your location) and the more often you look for your own site, the more skewed those results will be.

To give an example, most people searching for “seo expert peter” see my site on the first page. But I see myself on the fourth. Essentially because I’ve searched for myself so often, but then not spent much time on my site or even bothered to click it, Google has “learnt” that I don’t like it and therefore ranks it down for me, uniquely.

The right place to get Google’s official rank for your site is their Search Console system., which is where I get my stats.

Their stats are actually an ‘average’ of your rank which is the statistically most useful approach. Because of personalisation, not everyone sees your site in the same position. Where someone is searching from geographically for example has an impact. So the average rank is the best indicator of where you rank.

There’s a commonly held belief that if you use a private browsing window somehow you’ll see the proper rankings in the search results. But all that does is prevent Google from knowing your account – they still know where you live, your IP address, in some cases the unique code for your network card – there’s plenty for them to skew your results with.

Filed Under: Featured, General, Google, Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Case Study: Turning SEO work off

May 11, 2020 by Peter Mahoney

I had a client recently who (for reasons exclusively to do with the inexperience of their website’s designer) turned off one of the SEO plugins I had installed and configured for them.

It happened shortly after I carried out an initial SEO overhaul on their site, so gives us a valuable insight into the effect of getting SEO done, and the removing it again.

It’s a very small (and brand new company), but you can see the effects in this graph – taken directly from Google Search Console.

Initially after my work their SEO stats began to shoot up, gaining traction and upward momentum. Immediately after deactivating just one plugin it plummeted back to its original position.

This didn’t use to happen so quickly. If you took SEO work off a site, or just fell behind with updates and changes to best practice, things would trail off over time. It now appears not having the very best SEO at all times leads to an immediate decrease in SEO authority. Because so many website owners (your competitors!) invest in SEO these days it means any time you don’t have it working, they can rise above you in the rankings.

But other SEO professionals have tried the same thing (turning off a single SEO plugin on their own testing sites) and see the same result. The drop is nearly immediate.

Filed Under: Featured, Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Tagged With: google, ranking, search engine optimisation, seo

There are still plenty of SEO cowboys out there

September 19, 2019 by Peter Mahoney

I’m regularly amazed at the poor quality of SEO work I come across daily.

And the attitude of the cowboys that do it is just shocking.

I recently had an exchange with a potential SEO client. At least they thought they were a potential client.

Before I begin I should point out about 70% of my work is for digital marketing agencies who on-sell my work to their clients. I’m more than happy to do that – but it’s incredible how many people try to take the piss.

Perhaps every other week I have an order come through for a marketing agency that sells SEO work – who want me to SEO their own site but not their clients’! They don’t have enough knowledge, experience or confidence to SEO their own site – but they’ll happily charge people to do shoddy work for them.

This recent exchange I had wasn’t even that honest about the intent though – it was from someone who said they were just an ordinary client, but betrayed themselves with a few key phrases I’ve become very au fait with:
I don’t have time for this one = “I charge people for SEO myself but for one reason or another can’t do this one. Probably because I don’t know how to deliver quality search engine optimisation.”
If I order now, can you do it this afternoon (asked at 3pm) = “Not only do I have no idea how long decent WordPress SEO takes, but I’m kinda of pushy and rude too.”

Towards the end of the exchange I had the question that guarantees I’m talking to a cowboy:
I need 500+ backlinks too.

Also, presumably, by 5pm that day. 🙂

It’s no secret I strongly dislike the industry that’s cropped up around the automatic creation of backlinks. I blog about it a lot – but the short version is Google says it’s against their rules and they actively try to find and penalise sites that do it.

I replied with a link to one of my posts on the subject, thinking there was still a chance I was talking with someone genuinely interested in proper white-hat SEO. Then I got this reply.

All SEOs use techniques that google ideally would not want you to use because they work, right? At the end of the day, google’s ranking process is just an algorithm. The recent planned Google updates for Links coming in march 2020 may help clean up link building but SEOs will still find holes in the algorithm.

The clients you work with surly (sic) care more about results than a multi-billionaire business algorithm and how well you follow these guidelines?

That’s just a small part of it. There were 20+ other questions demanding I prove all manner of things about SEO and the correct approach to it. In and of itself that’s not a problem (I like to respond to questions to help people wherever I can) but it was all just so aggressively defensive.

I replied as honestly and directly as I could.

I don’t think we’re going to be a good fit together.

The whole idea that
All SEOs use techniques that google ideally would not want you to use because they work, right?

isn’t in line with my or Google’s ethos. Or what’s considered best practice in the industry.

Grey and blackhat techniques might work for a while, but never in the long term. And my clients are interested in long term success, not quick wins that end up hurting them when Google adjusts their systems accordingly. When you do SEO properly you’ll find Google algorithm updates actually IMPROVE ranking.

To be really honest you seem to be defending what could best be described as a cowboy approach. And that sort of SEO tends to lead to algorithm changes harming ranking rather than helping.

So while I do genuinely wish you all the best for the future, I hope you’ll understand that I’m not interested in working with you. We clearly have very different ideas of what good SEO is.

It’s certainly not the most diplomatic response I’ve ever sent. But if someone is going to suggest my clients want short-lived gains that come at the cost of massive penalties later I feel like they’re being insulted. Good SEO (like good business) looks for long-term solutions.

The bit where I did try to be diplomatic was that last line.

We clearly have very different ideas of what good SEO is.

Because search engine optimisation is not about a personal belief or idea about what you want it to be. It is based on an algorithm – a predictable one. There’s evidence to show what works and what doesn’t. Why would you ever do anything except the very best approach?

Filed Under: Backlinks, Google, Marketing, Opinion, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Backlinks are great for SEO but only if they’re legitimate

August 26, 2019 by Peter Mahoney

All off-site SEO basically comes down to is creating backlinks.

Directory listings, local citations, they’re all much the same when it comes to it.

Backlinks help if they’re legitimate – which means someone likes your site and has a proper reason to link to it. Any attempt to manipulate your own link profile goes against Google’s guidelines – and they’re adept at catching people and penalising them for it.

I’ve blogged about this a number of times – you can read some of those if you’d like more information.

My approach to SEO is entirely Google friendly; I very much believe the best approach is to match the search engines’ approach and fulfill their guidelines and recommendations.

This is sort of a catch-22, because while you shouldn’t fake links you do want them. My usual advice is to make use of your real life contacts to get some – ask suppliers or related sites to link to you, that sort of thing.

I should add too when people DO get links without properly asking people they really know for them – they tend to get extremely low quality ones. Too many low quality links hurts rather than helps. For example, every single person I’ve ever seen selling a BBC, Apple or Huffington Post link are actually just creating user profiles on those systems and sticking URLs in the bio section of those profiles.

That’s not really a proper link on the BBC! People think they’re going to get something in a news article, but more often than not they’re on pages Google doesn’t even index. The effect is people buy a back link on a ‘high quality domain’ but don’t get any SEO authority for it at all.

The people selling these links aren’t even doing it manually. There are automated tools they use to create hundreds of links in a few minutes. Google is smarter than this.

Because Google says explicitly that trying to manipulate your own link profile is against their terms there is no such thing as paying for Google safe links. It’s an oxymoron.

Filed Under: Backlinks, Google, Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

How good am I?

November 30, 2015 by Peter Mahoney

I’m not very good at tooting my own horn, but for the record, there are over 1,000 reviews of my service floating around on the internet, an 998 of those are 5-star feedbacks.

I’ve been doing website development since 1995, and SEO since 1998. Even according to Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule, that makes me an expert in both areas a few times over.

I just had a moment this morning that reminded myself just how experienced I am what I do. One client signed up for my monthly SEO service a few weeks ago. Normally it’s a month before I issue the first update but I do like to keep an eye on how things are going and check the data fairly regularly.

So when he wrote to ask how things were progressing I was very happy to be able to send him this graph, showing the number of times his site was seen in Google search results over the past 90 days, with a crudely drawn arrow indicating when he started working with me.

So how good am I? Very good. I’m just not always very good at telling you about it.

Filed Under: Marketing, Opinion, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Wordpress

I can design your Facebook Page for you

April 12, 2013 by Peter Mahoney

This is one of those “ultra specials” that I run as a way to build my client base. In some ways I feel a bit silly doing it because it’s just so cheap, but meeting new people makes pretty much everything worth while in my book!

Your Facebook Page needs to carry a LOT of important messages about you in just a couple of graphics. Too many people just shove their corporate logo up as their Page’s profile pic, and some large photo they like as the cover image. And certainly sometimes that can be the best option, but in most cases, it’s a wasted opportunity.

Who are you? Who is your target market? What sort of ethos do you and your business wnat to foster?

If you don’t tell people who you are you leave them free reign to form their own ideas about you and your business.

Seriously take a look at your Facebook Page right now. What does it show, at-a-glance, about you and your company?

If it doesn’t say as much as it could, hire me for the ridiculously low sum of £19 to sort it out for you.

Filed Under: Branding, Marketing, Social networking

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • Next Page »

Get FREE Wordpress SEO tips!

I send regular newsletters with WordPress SEO expert-level tips. Sign up to get them, along with my FREE e-book “Ongoing SEO Success”.

Did I mention they’re free!

Subscribe for free

Praise

I have over 2,500 5-star feedback reviews (and I’ve never received less than the full five.)

Here’s just one example, from Mike who runs Costello Entertainments:

Migration, Hosting, SEO and Speed Work on our new website all completed quickly and efficiently and Peter was most helpful in fixing an issue with a Popover on the site as well. If you’re thinking about asking Peter to do a job for you or hesitating, JUST DO IT! – He knows programming and the internet inside out, he’ll get the job done for you professionally, with a smile. I wish I could call a plumber or a tradesman to do the jobs I can’t do myself with the same level of confidence.
Read a lot more.

Recent Blogs

  • Thanks WordPress SEO expert for all your work.
    I feel like you are my guy for all my SEO. I did want to ask you if I need to get someone to write my Blog ...
  • Can the description show the Product Short Description
    Hi Peter SEO Expert :), Hope you’re doing well and having a good summer. Had this message from a client ...
  • Don’t just search for yourself!
    This is actually a stock answer I send people pretty often. I’m regularly asked about the difference ...
  • SEO doesn’t shouldn’t your site’s front-end
    On my SEO Emails section (where I share helpful responses to commonly asked queries) I recently shared a not ...

Legal

  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Disclaimer

Also read

  • Payment information

RSS

Peter Mahoney, WordPress SEO expert blog

Recent Posts

  • Thanks WordPress SEO expert for all your work.
  • Can the description show the Product Short Description
  • Don’t just search for yourself!
  • SEO doesn’t shouldn’t your site’s front-end
  • Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) for SEO & Speed

© Copyright 2023 Wordpress SEO Expert · All Rights Reserved · Site by Peter Mahoney