SEO Manchester

We’re an SEO Manchester agency, focused on return on investment. We’ve worked with some of the world’s largest companies, including Boohoo, BUPA, Gymshark and the Co-operative. Our approach is revenue focused, we’ll only take on clients who can make a viable return from their investment, SEO with a Manchester agency is viable for everyone.  Contact us now to find out how we can increase your organic visibility.

SEO Manchester Agency

Positive SEO in Manchester provides the best return on investment of any digital marketing channel. It is always possible to increase your visibility further, no matter how long you have been doing SEO in Manchester. Your website can always be improved in some way, whether this is targeting bigger and higher search volume keywords, adding additional sections and pages to your website, or improving upon existing on-page optimisation. These are just a few of the things that we can offer you as part of your SEO Manchester campaign to further increase your rankings. 

Negative SEO in Manchester is a long term approach and requires an investment of time. You will need to spend between three and six months on SEO in Manchester before you see the great return on investment it provides.

SEO Manchester is Red Cow Media’s core service. This is what our reputation was initially built on, by offering the best SEO Manchester has to offer, as well as the best in technical SEO. With SEO Manchester currently the fastest evolving sector within digital marketing, it is essential to not only be up to date with SEO in Manchester best practices but to be ahead of the curve. 

This is where our focus lies. We continually manage to outrank and outperform very large corporations with 7 figure budgets for even our local SEO Manchester clients. We are constantly analysing, testing, researching and training in new and cutting edge SEO techniques and, applying SEO in Manchester is the best practice in innovative ways.

We understand that SEO in Manchester can often appear complex and highly competitive. It is a service that is full of endless acronyms and technical jargon that seems aimed at anyone other than your average business owner. Our approach is different. Very different in fact! We work closely with all of our clients to ensure that you understand what we are doing for your Manchester SEO campaign, and why. 

We have learnt that, when clients truly understand what we are doing and have an insight into our approach and progress in the early stages of an SEO Manchester campaign and throughout, we can help achieve better results. For companies based close by (or willing to travel to our Manchester SEO office), we offer courses on SEO in Manchester city centre which enables those we work with to gain a greater understanding of basic search engine optimisation principles, allowing them a greater insight into what we’re doing at each stage of their  SEO Manchester process and why.

The only two reasons companies need help from an SEO agency such as Red Cow are:

Expertise – Our founders and team have worked within the field of SEO in some of Manchester’s best-known agencies, in well known client-side positions and on a global scale. We have seen the many changes that have occurred in SEO in Manchester throughout that time. 

Experience alone, however, doesn’t mean a lot. We continually come in contact with people and agencies who work as if it is still 2001 and are yet to evolve their processes. Not only does this lead to poor results, but gives the rest of us a bad name. 

Our value is evident in the passion that every single member of our team has to continually ensure that we are providing the best SEO Manchester has to offer. We push harder to understand ranking factors and updates, no matter how minor they seem, and get the edge over both Google and other Manchester SEO agencies.

Resource – To do search engine optimisation correctly is a very manual, time-intensive task, with reams of content needing to be continually produced and thorough research needs to be done. This is not only for the website itself but also for the outreach element associated with link building. An SEO Manchester campaign, in general, requires a significant time commitment to be able to run an effective campaign and, whilst many of our clients have the SEO understanding needed, they simply don’t have the time to execute every single part of a comprehensive SEO Manchester strategy.

At Red Cow, we take a very different approach to our SEO in Manchester strategy and our digital marketing work in general. We don’t see ourselves as one of the many typical digital marketing agencies that ‘disrupt’ the market. We don’t have meetings in an office tree-house with a slide, nor do we talk incessantly about the success of a campaign in terms of it having ‘reached’ a certain number of people. We are competitive. We want to make you money. We want to achieve the best results in order to do so. We provide a highly consultative, corporate level of SEO in Manchester, with results determined purely by the bottom line – return on investment.

2021 has seen some major changes with SEO in Manchester and we believe that SEO has never been more important for businesses, especially if you want your website to perform well and traffic to increase. We understand that setting up a Manchester SEO campaign isn’t viable for everybody, so If you send us an enquiry, then the first thing we will do is research your industry and market.

We’ll be able to inform you as to whether it is cost-effective for you to start an SEO Manchester campaign with us. If the number of people searching for a given keyword each month isn’t high enough and it wouldn’t result in a good enough return on investment for the amount you are spending with a Manchester SEO agency, then it isn’t the right thing to do. To give you a rough idea, for every 10 enquiries we receive from the results of our SEO in Manchester, only around 50% would actually be viable.

Case Study - Bupa

"Red Cow Media managed the SEO implications of transitioning acquired private dental clinics in to the Bupa group with great organisation and professionalism."

Irfan Rehman, Digital Marketing Manager
Bupa: our big SEO Manchester client.

SEO Guide

1. Initial Audit

Every good SEO campaign starts with a thorough initial audit. At Red Cow Media, we ensure that this process is as meticulous as possible so we can perform SEO in the most efficient way that will actually produce results. In basic terms, it is a ‘health check’ for your website. We will evaluate how well your website is optimised for search engines, and identify any errors that can prevent your site from ranking well. Our SEO audit will assess your:

-Indexing and Website Structure

-Website Crawlability

-User Experience

-Keyword Research

-On-Page SEO

-Backlink Profile

SEO audits can identify any errors that are on your website initially, that we can fix as part of our SEO campaign. It helps us make sure that your site does not have any broken or unhealthy backlinks, duplicate content, or poor website architecture. We start any campaign with this to ensure that we are optimising your website in ways that will actually find you results, and fix these issues to improve your ranking and visibility. Our technological knowledge and thorough research methods will ensure that any issues that crop up are fixed in a prompt manner, so your SEO campaign can start off on the right track. Other digital agencies will often come up with endless spreadsheets of search volumes and useless information that has hardly any bearing on rankings, but it will look great. Our approach is to focus on what matters – which things that will actively increase rankings, conversions and website traffic. We will show you a detailed plan for the months ahead, showing you how we will improve your website’s visibility and rankings. 

 

2. Keyword Research

Improving your rankings for certain keywords is a major part of SEO. However, selecting keywords is an extensive and selective process, with keyword research being crucial to a successful SEO strategy. We put a great deal of research, thought and discussion into what keywords we wish to target, and where we will target them. Unlike other agencies, we won’t just pick keywords with the highest search volumes, or ones that will rank quickly but generate no traffic. Each keyword we select is carefully analysed and selected for a reason – to improve your SEO campaign. 

Keywords are incredibly important in the SEO process. When setting up your SEO campaign, our keyword research is extensive and considers every possible avenue. We will make sure that the keywords we select for you have the best chance of finding you results. 

We will map out our suggestions and then discuss our findings with you, giving more insight into why we have chosen them. We aim to choose keywords which are the most qualified, relevant and likely to get you good results. 

 

3. On-Page Optimisation 

On page optimisation refers to all methods that can be taken directly on your website in order to improve your rankings. All content on your website should be optimised in order to improve your search engine rankings. 

There are many different types of SEO to consider when it comes to on-page optimisation. Many different elements need to be optimised in order to do on-page SEO. These include – content optimisation, technical SEO, internal linking and structure, and website design. 

These on page SEO changes are imperative to the success of your SEO campaign. We will start optimising your on-page content right away. This, along with links, is one of the primary areas of importance with an SEO campaign. 

Every website needs different levels of content. Different types of business need different levels of content. During the initial audit, we will find out if there is an opportunity to create new pages in order to target different keywords to bring in more qualified traffic. We will start writing the new content and aim to get the new pages live as soon as possible. 

In most cases we can write the content, create the page and have it live on the site with no need for a web developer, unless your website has a static HTML or a very bespoke CMS. With the SEO services that we offer, we will optimise the page as a whole for the keywords being targeted, internal linking and much more.

4. Content Optimisation 

The content on your website isn’t just visible text and images- content can refer to everything on your website that might be initially invisible. For example, editing alt-tags and meta information can also contribute to your Google rankings – here at Red Cow Media, we analyse every part of your content in order to improve your visibility. 

Firstly, one of the most important parts of content optimisation is to look carefully at your pages, and see where we can add content to these pages to improve their rankings on search engine results pages. We may also add pages to your website in order to improve your online visibility. We use many techniques and tools in order to optimise your content to improve its rankings on search engines. Our team is committed to providing you with helpful, engaging content that is optimised in terms of keywords and crawlability, to improve your rankings. 

We also look at the ‘hidden’ content on your website, for example, your meta titles, meta descriptions and alt tags. We optimise the language and word usage in these in order to optimise your website and improve its crawlability. 

By optimising all of these things on your website, your website will be able to climb up the rankings and improve your user experience. This will mean that more potential customers will stay on your website. 

 

5. Technical SEO

There are many technical things that we look at in order to improve your website’s visibility and rankings. We will assess your website’s technical SEO health during the audit, however, we will monitor it throughout the SEO campaign. We can optimise many of the technical components of your website – by improving your page speed and updating your website’s code. Our technical SEO methods are designed to improve user experience and improve your website’s stance in terms of algorithm. 

Technical SEO is a very important part of your website’s search engine optimization. By improving your website’s technical features such as load speed, code schema, FAQ accordions and performing MML testing and reports, we will be able to improve your website’s search engine optimization. All of these things contribute to your rankings just as much as backlinks and content do.

 

6. Link Building

Here at Red Cow Media, we pride ourselves on our link building services and building your website’s authority in a natural way. Nothing is better for your website than a solid, healthy link building strategy. A healthy links profile is essential for your website’s SEO plan, and contributes to an overall healthy website. 

We use a unique link building strategy that we specifically tailor to each of our clients. Our bespoke MML model is a detailed prototype for the link profile we will create for you, based on your competitors. We don’t provide spammy links that will lower your website’s authority. We find relevant and high authority links through a variety of different methods, including writing high quality content. We have seen firsthand how link building has been extremely successful as part of our client’s SEO campaigns. Here at Red Cow Media, we take everything into consideration when creating your website’s bespoke SEO plan. 

 

7. Conversion Rate Optimisation 

In SEO, your conversion rate is the amount of goal completions you get from a visit to your website. A ‘goal completion’ could refer to a purchase (on ecommerce sites) or an enquiry (on lead generation websites.) There are many ways in which we as an SEO agency do conversion rate optimisation in order to increase your revenue. 

There are many things that could be keeping your conversion rates low. Your website could have a low load speed or poor layout, which could be impacting people staying on your website. Here at Red Cow Media, we will look at every aspect of your website and make improvements where necessary to optimise your conversion rate. 

We might advise you to make changes to your website with your developer and provider in order to improve your conversion rate. Improving your website’s overall conversion rate is a highly valuable part of an SEO strategy, and here at Red Cow Media, we will do everything within our power to optimise this. 

UX Optimisation  

UX optimization, or user experience optimisation, is also one of the most important indicators we use to demonstrate how successful your SEO plan is. We will monitor this alongside conversion rate optimization to determine the direction of your bespoke SEO strategy. User experience optimisation deals with your website and how it is perceived by its users, and how many of your users use your website again. UX optimisation is a very important part of customer retention and conversion rate optimisation

There are many things that we analyse to help you improve UX optimisation. Some of these things include website layout, which could impact your users’ ability to complete core tasks (completing a goal.) However, we will also look at optimising your website’s content through on-page and technical SEO, which can also improve your user’s experience. We analyse user behaviour in order to direct our strategies and advice. 

Delivering a customer optimised user experience is a very important part of SEO. There are many things we can do to help you improve your website in order to retain customers and help you improve your sales and enquiries. Here at Red Cow Media, we place a great emphasis on improving UX optimisation and conversion rate optimisation as this is crucial when it comes to SEO. 

Algorithm Updates 

At Red Cow Media, we make sure that we are always updated and educated on how the Google algorithm changes. Google’s core updates can change how we form our SEO strategies. By remaining on the cutting edge and making sure our strategies will work with Google’s algorithm, we can make the best SEO strategy for you. 

There have been many core updates that have changed throughout the years which have sculpted the way we do SEO. We evolve alongside Google and other search engines in order to get great results. 

Google Panda was one of the first major core updates which changed how we think about SEO. Google Panda was rolled out between 2011 and 2015. The Panda algorithm update addressed a number of issues with Google SERPS, and impacted how search engine optimisation changed. Google Panda penalised websites for thin content (pages with very little substantive content), duplicate content, low-quality content, content farming and high ad-to-content ratio. Before the update, many people could exploit the algorithm with low quality content and bad techniques. However, the Google Panda update shaped the way modern SEO is done. High quality, relevant, unique content became the standard of a good SEO strategy. 

Google Penguin was also a significant core update that impacted how good SEO strategies work. Penguin initially impacted over 3.1% of English language search engine queries. The Google Penguin update consisted of 10 updates between 2012 and 2016. Penguin targeted two specific problems with search engine optimisation – keyword stuffing and link schemes. Link schemes involved purchasing backlinks from low quality and unrelated websites. This meant that you didn’t have to create relevant content in order to build a link. For example, a company may pay to have a link about ‘car insurance’ on an article about ladies’ fashion trends. Keyword stuffing refers to including a very high number of keywords on a webpage, tricking the google algorithm. Keyword stuffing looked very unprofessional and unnatural, but it worked before the Penguin update. Google Penguin penalised websites for these strategies, which significantly changed how SEO strategies were formed. 

The recent 2022 Google EEAT update expanded on the Google EAT update of 2014. Google EAT prioritised content that demonstrated expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. However, Google EEAT added another characteristic that the algorithm would prioritise – experience. This meant that your content now had to demonstrate that the writer had experience and was knowledgeable in what they were talking about. This also significantly changed how good SEO plans are created. 

Here at Red Cow Media, we pay close attention to search engine updates so we can constantly tailor our SEO strategies to keep them updated. This is one of the best ways to keep your SEO content current and fresh. 

Frequently Asked Questions

  • What SEO tools do Red Cow Media use?

  • We use a range of SEO tools to help us optimise websites. The industry standard include:

    Moz

    Google Analytics

    Search Console

    Pagespeed Insights

    SEMRush

    There are plenty more applications, tools and software that we use and we strongly believe in balance and not strictly relying on a couple of tools to measure performance. Our SEO tools aside, our best asset will always be the team working on the accounts. With link building as an example, solely focusing on one metric such as domain authority doesn’t work long term and can come across as spammy from Google’s perspective. Looking at a website’s traffic index, Trustflow, Domain Authority and Domain Ranking are all really important to Red Cow Media to assure you that healthy links are being built to your website. 

    Traffic performance is tracked through Search Console and Google Analytics. With Google Analytics changing to GA4, it’s essential you have an agency that can set up and talk you through the new platform as well as show you how to use it and be able to monitor your businesses’ own performance. 

  • What other services do Red Cow Media offer?

  • While we find SEO to be one of the core channels to focus on and specialise in, we also strongly believe in having a great, well-rounded marketing strategy that involves more than just SEO. 

    Google Ads

    Google Ads is a marketing channel that works really well with SEO. While our SEO strategy is long term, PPC can offer more instant results. PPC is more expensive long term though which is why SEO is great to have ticking in the background. We can tailor our Google Ads to suit any business whether you want to be visible on Google Shopping, PPC, Youtube or anywhere else on Google. There has been some great innovation in machine learning from Google in recent years, feel free to send over an enquiry for some more information on this or you can explore or Paid Search page.

    Paid Social

    Paid social has always been something we’re great at! We’ve worked with some of the biggest brands in the UK and know exactly how to generate a healthy ROAS and/or a strong cost per lead. It’s harder than ever for brands to get a consistent ROI that’s positive with how Meta has changed post IOS14 and we offer new innovative ways to get your data back and learn as much as possible from your customers and from high intent audiences.

    We work with a range of new and established brands with both small and large budgets. Our team is driven to hit your KPIs and thrive under new challenges, with experience working on fashion, healthcare, solicitors and more. If you’d like more information on how we can improve your social performance call us or send over an inquiry today.

    Paid social comes in many forms now and we work with Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and Pinterest on a daily basis.

    Remarketing

    Remarketing is an underused channel and offers a high ROAS even from the lowest budgets. We create unique banners used to retarget your previous users across the internet to improve engagement and help to promote new offers.

  • How long do SEO results take with Red Cow Media?

  • SEO is a long term strategy that helps your business grow naturally and unlike other channels, it doesn’t need more and more investment to create a higher return on your investment. The results do vary depending on your businesses competition, previous SEO or lack of, and monthly spend, however, we tend to see positive results from the majority of our clients within 3 to 6 months.

    We’re very realistic in terms of expectations and how performance is going, we believe consistency is key when it comes to SEO and making sure we add best practice to all aspects of the website is our top priority. Naturally a lower spend will take longer and a higher spend will provide a much faster return, but during the onboarding phase we will run through the options available and with lower budgets we can hyper focus on core pages while with bigger budgets we can expand faster. There is no exact one strategy that fits all at Red Cow Media, we tailor each client whether it’s a local, national or international campaign we’re running. Take a look at some of our case studies to see the variety of businesses we’ve worked with and what we’ve achieved.

  • Do Red Cow Media do short term SEO projects or long term?

  • At Red Cow Media, we always recommend a long term SEO strategy as Google wants constant maintenance to keep your users happy whilst browsing your website. With a consistent strategy in place, keywords and phrases will improve naturally and we can focus on core pages to improve performance specifically. 

    However, we understand that some businesses already have an in-house team or a longer term strategy isn’t an option in the present, and you might want specific work completed to improve your website before committing to an ongoing SEO project. We’ve worked with some of the biggest companies in the world on short term projects that their in-house terms might not specialise in, and it’s great that it can be acknowledged and having a SEO consultant or short term project in place can help keep your website healthy.

    Often we help businesses with website migrations, SEO audits and Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO). These are fairly unique services that an in-house team might not have the tools for or experience in. 

    With website migrations especially, incorrect practices can cause websites to lose their rankings and essentially hit the reset button on a website’s visibility. We can help by working with web developers to ensure that moving from one CMS (content management system) to another runs smoothly and redirects, authority and meta data all move in the process correctly.

    Another short term project is an SEO audit. Smaller business and even larger in-house teams don’t want to pay monthly subscriptions to dozens of SEO tools, and hiring a SEO agency can help keep costs down. We analyse backlink profiles, website speed, core web vitals, overall visibility and keyword gaps to give you an exact idea of what your website is missing or what can be improved.

    CRO is the final short term project we offer and helps you identify issues with your conversion rate. We study competitors, complete user testing and conduct MML analysis on your website to help you improve the number of users purchasing, enquiring and also help to increase the average order value.

  • What does Red Cow Media specialise in?

  • We have a number of specialties including SEO, Paid Social, Google Ads and Remarketing. Our team includes both digital marketing specialists and SEO specialists to ensure your business gets the right, most effective service. There’s a lot more variety in SEO with Technical SEO, content, link building and on-page all being areas of focus, so we make sure each of our accounts has multiple specialists working on it to assure the best results every time.

    We do offer more services that we’re happy to discuss but the above is the foundation of Red Cow Media and we’re honest about which marketing channels we think will truly benefit your business.

  • How does Red Cow Media report on performance?

  • We offer monthly reporting as standard for all of our clients. In terms of SEO, we believe the ongoing changes we’re making to the website will stand out on a monthly basis. While we offer monthly reporting as a standard we understand every business is different and weekly updates may also be required, which we’re more than happy to do and we have several clients who prefer an SEO update with their other marketing channels reporting such as PPC and paid social.

    While reporting to you may occur weekly or monthly we review all of our clients Google Analytics accounts daily to make sure there aren’t any abnormalities, and if there are we’re ready to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Installing new apps, web development and other malfunctions can occur and we can monitor, advise and fix issues if they arise with the checks we do daily.

    We can also provide quarterly, mid year and full year reports to give you a better understanding of SEO performance. Our YoY reporting tends to highlight the work we’ve completed and we can see the SEO impact and how it’s helped other channels.

  • What are the 3 pillars of SEO?

  • The 3 pillars of SEO are often referred to in the industry, and focusing your strategy around them will help to improve your websites rankings. Authority, relevance and experience are the 3 pillars of SEO and below you can find a more detailed look at each one.

    Authority

    Authority refers to the trustworthiness, weight and importance of your page. In an ideal world you would create an interesting page and other websites would naturally link to your website as a point of reference and additional insight. SERPs have plenty of content, which means naturally building authority can be difficult. With the help of link building from an SEO agency like Red Cow Media, creating content for other websites and linking to your website helps to build that authority.

    Google’s algorithm analyses more than 350 metrics to decide which website/page should rank for a search but even at the beginning of Google, the creators knew that accessing the authority of a website would need to be a fundamental of deciding which website ranks where. Essentially, having other websites link to yours is almost an endorsement of trust. However, there are other factors to consider about the internal functionality of your website to also improve your website’s authority. 

    At Red Cow Media we use several tools to analyse which websites we should link to. We’re very proud of our techniques as we often see competitors try to fast track this process by building low authority links that won’t benefit the clients website. Maintaining a long term link building strategy is very important as changing your website’s authority isn’t a short term process. For more information on this or to discuss your current backlink profile, contact us or you can call our office.

    Relevance 

    Another pillar is the relevance of your website from the search query. If you have a clothing brand, it is very unlikely that you’ll ever rank for search terms based around pet food. Keyword research and content optimisation are an absolute essential at Red Cow Media, making sure we communicate what your brand is to Google and more importantly, make sure that the users are clicking through.

    While pet food and clothing is an unlikely example, often we see brands that don’t optimise for the right keyword. If you’re a luxury brand, identifying keywords based around this is essential. Gaining clicks from generic searches might look great on a graph, but we want to focus more on generating clicks from users that are more likely to purchase or enquire.

    Internal linking and optimal anchor text are both also an essential part of making your website relevant and helping users navigate around it. There are specific techniques when it comes to this practice so make sure you’re doing it correctly before adding internal links everywhere.

    Content will always be king on websites, it’s your best way to communicate what is on a page for Google’s crawlers. It’s important to consider your structure, the depth of the content and the keywords, but avoiding keyword spam, unreadable content and poor page layout is also essential. Considering Google Algorithm updates such as E-A-T and helpful content is also a big factor in how websites rank.

    Experience

    The third pillar came later and evaluates the user experience of a website. The minds behind Google realised that Authority and Relevance can’t be the only core areas of focus as a website can create excessive content and build links to manipulate the rankings. 

    With user experience, Google can analyse a website based on speed, load times and other Core Web Vitals then decide if a website’s experience is good and matches the other pillars. It’s essential that websites avoid click bait or misleading keywords. Over time the lower page interaction will lead to a drop in rankings too as Google wants the most helpful content to be available to users. Helpful Content has been one of Google’s best algorithm updates as it makes sure that people creating content aren’t just spinning old or incorrect information.

    With all three pillars optimised a website can rank websites for the correct search results and users will be happy when they land on the page, which means that there is a higher chance of a conversion or full article read, depending on your goals.

  • Agency Outsourcing v In-House SEO Team

  • When contemplating appointing an SEO agency, one of your first thoughts will no doubt be, “why would I pay thousands of pounds per month rather than just hiring someone in-house who will work full time?”. The answer is that you are paying for the collective expertise, experience and knowledge of a full team of SEO experts. The countless hours of research, development, and testing that we put into knowing the quickest, safest and most effective ways to improve a website’s rankings on a collaborative team basis is unrivalled. The actual work that is completed on a day-to-day basis for our clients is only a small portion of the overall SEO we do. Put simply, to try and replicate an effective agency environment in house would actually be more costly, and likely less effective.

    There is a good reason the world’s biggest companies continue to outsource their work to SEO agencies, and that is because by our very nature agencies are more competitive and driven than in-house employees. As of 2023, there are 1,142 registered SEO companies in Manchester alone, with a staggering 4,545 in the whole of the UK, according to leading B2B review website Clutch. Agencies are operating in an ultra competitive environment and therefore staff, training, processes and methodology need to be at the very forefront.