A few words on Google
It’s a hard question to answer. It’s evolving all the time. They are forever changing their algorithms to improve search results. This is done on an almost daily basis in the hope of filtering out spammers or websites that are breaking Google’s rules, usually this means minor changes and they are not noticeable. However, every so often there is a major update that causes big changes in search engine results.
Things that Google said were important in the past, but in fact made very little difference to the search results, such as poor quality links and content of websites now have a major impact on where your website ranks. Tools that worked very well a year or so ago can now be detrimental to your ranking. At some stage most websites have been affected by these changes. It wasn't so long ago that the mistakes you made on your website were overlooked by Google. It still could have a negative effect, especially in things like ad words, but it wouldn't affect your rankings dramatically. Now the same mistakes can make you virtually disappear from Google.
But here comes the difficult bit. Those changes that can see your search engine ranking drop in a matter of days are in most cases because you made a mistake, not because you've done something spammy or malicious, but still in the worst-case scenarios you could see yourself blacklisted. So what does Google actually punish you for? Well here is another problem for you, Google is forever changing it’s mind and what is true today may not be true in the near future. So what do you do and what do you avoid?
Don’t buy links, once these were a great asset but this is no longer the case. Only links with relevance have any meaningful and positive effect on your ranking.
Avoid keyword stuffing. Simply put, if you are a SEO company in Bristol you shouldn’t mention this 30 or 40 times in your content. My advice would be not to use your keywords more than three times in an article of 500 words. But once again, this is not an exact science yet.
Broken links. It’s really simple. If you've got some broken links on your site get them fixed.
Make sure you have a responsive website there is no question that Google is making more noise about the importance of your site looking good on all devices, whether that’s a smart phone, tablet or PC.
Make sure your content is relevant to your website. Google have talked about this for a long time. Previously the relevance of your content was questionable but that’s not the case now, it’s crucial that you write good content that makes good reading for your user.
Being active in social media for local SEO is now a major factor. It builds trust and reputation, which is becoming more important each day. We all know about Facebook and Twitter but don’t forget Google + it’s a factor in ranking well with Google. Good relevant articles that are linked across you Social Media platforms, blog and website that are then shared are a great way to optimise your posts.