Updated 17/07/2023

There are two main ways to stand out from the crowd if you’re in the cleaning business. The first and most obvious way is to do a great job of scrubbing, polishing, sweeping, etc. etc. There’s no better advertisement than a happy customer and word of mouth is just as effective a form of advertising as it was one hundred or even one thousand years ago – possibly even in 10,000 BC, the word was being passed around about the best flint knapper. However, the other way to ensure that the news about your cleaning business gets in front of your customers is to make sure that you have a good online presence. But what do I mean by that?

The best way to ensure that your cleaning company has a good online presence is to have plenty of leads pointing the way to your website. (We’re going to assume that you have a website for your cleaning business. If you don’t, then you’d better get one as soon as possible; it’s not as hard as you think). It’s having links that ensure that your webpage is nice and high on the search engine rankings. If you stop to think about your own browsing behaviour, you probably don’t look much past the first page or possibly two when you’re looking for something on Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, etc. Other people are the same, so if you’re not well up the rankings, you’re probably missing out on a few customers.

How Not To Build Links

Some people get shudders at the idea of building links, (we are quite the opposite – you can’t succeed at London SEO if you are not linking properly) especially if they’ve even encountered a “link farm” website or three. Link farms are a group of websites that all generate links to each other (a diagram of them would look like one of those string-and-nail pictures that were popular in the 1970s and are probably due for a comeback in crafting circles). These sites exist merely to generate links to each other, and they tend to be dead boring, repetitive and a downright nuisance for any real human being trying to read them.

Any method of building links or increasing your online presence or boosting your online rankings that depends on manipulating the algorithms and the machines but without thinking about the humans actually reading the pages tends to get very heavily penalised by search engines these days, as these irritating spammy habits got SEO a bad name so the powers that be cracked down on it. Let’s face it: you don’t want to annoy the people who might hire you and your cleaners by using annoying and underhand link building techniques. Think of what the equivalent is in real-world terms. If your cleaners went door to door, waving brooms and vacuum cleaners in people’s faces and shouting loudly about how well you can clean their house, then you’d put people off rather than attracting them.

If you use the same consideration of your customers when you’re online and building links that you do when you’re actually in their homes cleaning, then you’ll be more successful.

Good Ways Of Building Links For Cleaning Companies

OK, so how do you ensure that you go about things the right way during your link building campaign? Here’s a handful of simple steps that you can try right away.

1. Ask real people for links. You’ve got friends, family members, colleagues, suppliers, employees, etc. etc. Ask them to add a link from their site to yours, and do the same for them (or at least offer). Here’s how it works: you ask the wholesaler where you buy your carpet shampoo or other cleaning products from to link to your site and they’ll add this on a page or sidebar saying “This is who uses our products”. You, in return, add something like “We use Brand X” with a hyperlink to their site. Everybody’s happy, including Google’s Panda and Penguin algorithms.
   
2. Content, content, content. Good content, both visual and text, gets shared far and wide on the internet, especially now that social media allows just about everything to be shared, pinned, tweeted, re-tweeted and so forth. However, the content has to be good quality so people actually read it or watch it, and want to share it. Content comes in many forms, from blogs to videos and everything else in between (more on this below).
   
3. Get blogging. Create yourself a nice blog site and make sure that your articles have a link or two to your business’s home page (or About page or Our Services page or… vary it up!). But never, ever overdo the links. If your post looks like “If you get a professional cleaner to clean your home and clean the windows, then you need to make sure that they know how to clean efficiently,” it will be (a) annoying to read and (b) penalised by the search engine algorithms. Just have a few good links and an interesting article. Also, make sure that you have a good selection of articles on a range of appropriate topics. If you can update your content regularly, then it’s even better. And don’t forget to ensure that you have those social media sharing buttons so that if people love your blog post, they can do so (this is an organic way of building links).
   
4. Video it. OK, hands up if you’ve ever wasted time watching something hilarious on YouTube. Right, now you can put your hands down. If your Facebook feed is anything like mine, it’s full of funny or thought-provoking videos shared by your friends and family members. Each of those videos provides a nice little link (and it also gives you the excuse to create a YouTube channel = another chance to link to your site!). While the obvious type of video for a cleaning company is a series of “how to” videos, there are other options. How about a collection of “unbelievably filthy houses” or your cleaning crew doing a silly song and dance routine using their brooms and mops as props? Use imagination and a sense of humour!
   
5. Guest blog. If you find the chance to write a guest blog on someone else’s site, go for it. Of course, there are two golden rules you need to follow. The first is the same as the one for ordinary blogging: don’t overdo the links. The second is to make sure that you keep it relevant. If you have the chance to write a guest blog on a motoring website, then you’d better do it on something like “Environmentally Friendly Ways To Wash Your Car”, where you speak as an expert cleaner. Similarly, if you are a guest blogger on a parenting site, you’d write about getting kids to do chores or how to simplify housework.
   
6. Forum commenting. If you post a comment or join in a conversation on a forum, you have the chance to add a wee link to your site. There is a right way and a wrong way to do this. The wrong way is to just put something inane and not very relevant on any old forum, whether it has anything to do with cleaning or not. You’ve probably come across the sort of thing (before the moderators get rid of the pest). “Thank you for this interesting article. Bill from billscleaners.com.” However, if the conversation is relevant to cleaning and you have something useful to contribute, then comment away! Of course, this will take imagination and intelligence, and a fair amount of hunting to find suitable forums where you can make appropriate and relevant comments (how to clean afghan throws on Ravelry?). Forums aren’t the only place where you can leave comments with links: comment on other blog posts and videos, as long as you manage to keep it relevant.

Updated 17/07/2023

You’re good at what you do, and you’re a specialist in your field. You know how to use a search engine to look things up and you’ve probably clicked (pun!) that the closer to the top of the rankings on Google, Bing, Yahoo or even the beautifully British Ask Jeeves a site is, the more likely it is to be viewed – which, in the long run, leads to new customers and clients. Naturally, you want your company website to do well in the ratings, especially in the new 2018. This means that you’ll need to find someone to help you with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and you want to find the best Internet Marketing firm in London to help you.

Does Your SEO Company Wear A White Hat?

The first question you need to ask in your search for a search engine optimisation pro is whether or not the company wears a white hat. Or, to put it in less colourful terms, does the company in question use ethical above-board techniques to boost search page rankings? Those that do this use white hat SEO; those that are a bit on the dodgy side are referred to as black hat SEO companies (think of the old cowboy movies where the good guys wore the white hats and those sporting black ten-gallons were the baddies).

Some of the tools used by a white hat SEO agency will be smart web design (did you realise how important having a proper URL is?), using the right keywords and savvy social media use – among other more technical ruses such as monitoring what users are doing on your site, how long they stay there, what they click and so on (yes, there’s software that can track this sort of thing – and it’s legit). A good white hat SEO company will also know where to put strategic and appropriate links where they do more than get up people’s noses. For example, if you manufacture environmentally friendly cleaning products, it’s a brilliant idea to pop a link to your site in a sensible discussion or comment section on a forum about, say, sustainable living. Just to add to the above, we have a huge amount of experience ranking cleaning companies’ websites in Google. Our main SEO strategist, Nick Vassilev, has been doing this since 2000 and his websites continue to earn millions of pounds per year. Would you like to take your cleaning business to the next level?

A reputable digital agency will know all the ins and outs of ethical ways to boost rankings on Google. What’s more, they won’t use any of the “black hat” techniques such as duplicated content (such as nicking the official manufacturer’s product descriptions), link stuffing, comment spamming (where some muggins is paid to make some trivial comment on articles on other sites and include a link back to your site) and the like. Blackhat SEO focuses entirely on manipulating the algorithms and the software to get up the rankings but has no consideration for the humans actually reading the content and trying to find out something useful or look for a product.

SEO That Makes Friends With The Panda

SEO has changed a lot since the old days – if “old days” can be used about events about 10 years ago (guess that’s a long time in the world of telecommunications). Back when people first discovered SEO, Google rankings and the importance of getting higher up the list, all sorts of cheap and nasty practices went on. Originally, if your site had lots of links leading to it and tons of the right search terms, it went up the ranking. This meant that plenty of SEO companies found it best to create “link farms” which more or less existed to generate links rather than to connect with clients and provide the information, entertainment and other aspects of good quality content and websites. SEO gurus also arranged for “content” that was mostly made up of the keywords and not much else, usually written on the cheap by people with dubious written English skills.

Users of the web – and SEO experts who knew the value of good content – were rescued by the Panda algorithm (named after the guy who developed it). This algorithm weeded out boring sites that mostly consisted of links, ads, and keywords, but rewarded sites where the SEO company creating them had taken the trouble to provide something that people would like to, you know, actually read!

You possibly remember how annoying it was to punch in your search term, click the first site in the search, then find yourself wallowing through a lot of verbal diarrhoea that barely made sense but contained all the keywords. Did this leave you with a favourable impression of the site? Definitely not. Did you find the information you were looking for? Probably not. Had the SEO company who created that site actually done their clients any favours? No way!

If you’re trying to decide who’s the best London SEO agency, then you need to find someone who’s made friends with the Panda algorithm. We have recently joined forces with one of the best search engine optimisation experts London SEO Guy, who are out of this world in their practical ranking knowledge. Now, Google has got some helpful guidelines for reputable companies who want to create good SEO content and who want to earn their ranking. For example, a pure SEO whizz will make sure that the articles in your blog or “about” pages cover a variety of topics – with the keywords in them, sure – but not multiple versions of the same thing with slightly different wording (e.g. “What You Need To Know About X” plus “Everything You Need To Know About X”). Good quality SEO will also contain content that someone would like to read – the sort of thing you’d encounter in a magazine or a book. Good SEO is also spelled correctly and has decent grammar!

In short, if you want to get the good rankings on Google, which, of course, you do, you want to make sure that the Search Engine Optimisation agency managing your project knows how to deliver good content and knows how to make friends with the Panda (and the Panda’s sibling, the Penguin).

SEO Means More Than Words

A good internet marketing specialist will indeed know how to pick the right keywords and create interesting and intriguing content for your website. However, don’t limit your thinking about content to just having a first-class blog post or nine. Pictures, memes, and infographics travel a long, long way around the web, and often give you some great organic links that boost your search engine rankings in the way that the Panda and the Penguin like. The funnier your content is, the better, as few things get shared as widely as a good joke (and this has the added advantage of building an active connection with potential clients and customers as well as driving up your rankings).

Also, having a site that’s well set up and easy to navigate for visitors is another key SEO strategy. Don’t overlook the importance of using a good font, a good background colour, and text size. If you’ve ever been irritated by a site that has the hyperlinks in an impossible to read colour, you’ll know what I mean. You also need to ensure that your site’s architecture and setup is smartphone-friendly.

What applies to static images like photos, memes, infographics, cartoons and the like also applies to video content. Video content is just as important for SEO strategy as written content, no matter what your business involves. The video also can go on social media platforms where text content can never go, such as Instagram and Snapchat – which aren’t to be sneezed at if you particularly want to target a younger audience with your product or service.

Speaking of social media, you are using it, aren’t you? If your SEO consultant doesn’t give at least a few social media strategies when planning the campaign to boost your business’s online profile. At the very least, your site should have a handful of sharing buttons on your blog page or article archive to allow readers to share that funny or thought-provoking article with others on Facebook. This is such a simple step, and it really shouldn’t be overlooked – although it’s surprising how often this strategy is ignored or forgotten.

Needing Help With Your SEO? We Can Rank You Anywhere in the UK

Creating good SEO can be overwhelming and complicated, as it’s a big issue as well as an important one. This is why we’re here to help you, so if you want to know more about how Search Engine Optimisation works, what the juicy keywords are and other great strategies, please get in touch with us.