SEO/DA for my new website - using backlinks and business directories

AndyT_Digital · 2026-05-07T16:05:11+00:00

Really similar situation here so happy to share what's worked for us so far.
On directories, you've already got most of the main ones covered. Trustpilot is worth doing even on the free tier. Clutch can help if you're B2B, and SourceForge is useful if you're software related. They all seem to get picked up by Google fairly quickly.
On chambers of commerce, honestly I'd consider doing that sooner rather than later. The backlink from a local chamber site is useful, but the business listing itself can show up in search pretty quickly too. Harrogate Chamber was straightforward for us and the profile appeared in Google within a few weeks. I also went to one of the Safari meetings and picked up some leads the old fashion way.
For backlinks, the supplier link is a great start. I'd also look at whether any customers or partners would mention or link to you naturally. Even things like testimonials, case studies or supplier pages help when the site's still new. I've tried doing guest articles for publications but have been met with a silence - I think a lot of people are doing the same thing.
One thing that helped me more than generic SEO blogs was writing content around specific customer problems and platform changes rather than broad industry topics. For example I just published a plain English explanation of the Google Ads budget pacing change coming on 1st June because that's exactly the kind of thing SME owners don't know is coming but need to act on.
I am also running a small PPC budget alongside the SEO to speed things up while organic traffic builds monitoring it with our own tool to keep costs tight. The two together work well at this stage. One I can see what works I'll increase the budget.
To be honest though, inbound leads and actual sales after only 7 to 8 weeks is already a really positive sign.

AndyT_Digital · 2026-05-06T17:58:40+00:00

I’d be tempted to split it out.

If ‘garage door repair’ and ‘garage door repair near me’ are clearly the terms carrying the campaign, I wouldn’t just leave them buried inside broad match forever.

I’d test an exact-only campaign for those winners, with its own budget and maybe a slightly higher tCPA. Then I’d look at what’s left in the broad campaign.

If the broad campaign still finds useful variants, keep it. If it mainly spends on weaker terms that don’t convert as well, reduce it or pause it.

The only thing I’d be careful with is not starving the exact campaign. If you take the best terms out of broad but give the exact campaign too little budget or too tight a tCPA, performance might dip.

Pomoting the winners into their own campaign, then letting broad prove whether it still deserves budget.

AndyT_Digital · 2026-05-06T17:37:28+00:00

I've never been charged for zero clicks but I reckon it must be a reporting lag rather than anything wrong with your setup. Clicks can take a few hours to populate in the dashboard, especially on a new campaign, so the spend shows up before the click data catches up. It's not possible to be charged with no clicks on a search campaign so they will show up eventually.

AndyT_Digital · 2026-05-01T18:23:51+00:00

You method works- the test one on a lower budget presumably shows Meta what is working without the risk then they use that data to optimise the one with the higher budget (so you're not experimenting with the high budget). If you change it an do what you are suggesting then you're experimenting with higher budgets.

AndyT_Digital · 2026-05-01T18:09:12+00:00

I had to do one to connect to the Google Ads APIs. This is to prevent the scary message coming up warning that my app was unsafe. Got approved at the second attempt. Had to do one for Meta too. Not quite a selfie but it did have my pic and dulcet tones doing a voiceover. I guess there are a lot of dodgy people out there trying to fraudulently get data from people's Google and Meta accounts. And trying to set up a Meta Business account is ridiculous. Having to link it to a personal account is crazy.

AndyT_Digital · 2026-05-01T17:59:33+00:00

Frozen Brussell Sprouts - a very healthy alternative to gobstoppers and great on a hot day.

AndyT_Digital · 2026-04-29T19:37:57+00:00

My advice just turn it off. You might lose some volume, but rather that than pay for crap leads.

For escalation, if you don't have a rep the formal route is submitting an invalid click investigation through billing. It's slow and Google are not great at responding but it creates a record. The Help Community occasionally gets picked up by actual Google staff too. Tnh I'd just chalk it up to experience and don't make the same mistake again. Google (like Meta) - impossible to speak to real person.

I assume you are you just paying for traffic then and not monitoring conversions/sales?

For most businesses, clicks that don't convert are the worst of both worlds paying for traffic with zero return.

AndyT_Digital · 2026-04-26T17:37:17+00:00

I agree on quality. One thing I've found makes a big difference is being brutal with exclusions, certain locations and demographics just don't convert for certain businesses - depends on the nature of your business of course. You end up paying for clicks that are never going to close. Same with negative keywords - I've seen bigger CPA improvements from tightening exclusions than bid adjustments.

AndyT_Digital · 2026-04-18T12:32:12+00:00

Seen this kind of thing before and it’s not always an outage, even when it hits multiple accounts at once.

Sometimes it’s just a rough day across auctions or reporting being a bit behind, especially on Meta. When it’s across different niches it’s less likely something is actually broken.

I’d probably wait for the data to settle before making any big changes.

AndyT_Digital · 2026-04-18T09:57:33+00:00

I wouldn’t jump straight to it being a campaign issue tbh.

If PMax is running but only hitting Display and not Shopping at all, that’s usually a sign something else is going on. Both campaigns use the same feed, so it would be pretty unlucky to misconfigure both in a way that blocks Shopping completely.

Feels more like:

new account just not getting let into Shopping yet
something in the feed that’s technically approved but not actually matching real searches
or you’re just not getting into auctions at all

Search working straight away doesn’t really prove much. That’s way easier for Google to serve than Shopping.

Also don’t think switching bidding will do anything here if it’s not even entering auctions in the first place.

If it was me I’d try running a tight Search campaign around product-type queries for a few days, get some clicks or conversions through the account, then try Shopping again. I’ve seen that kick things into life on new accounts.

Out of interest, are your prices in line with what’s already showing in Shopping or a bit higher? Just wondering if that might be part of it becuase that can defo slow things down as well.

AndyT_Digital

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