FutureProof Digital

08/09/2026

Trust the Search Results

Give Google what it wants. And you know what it wants by looking at the search result for the term you’re targeting.

If the search result features service pages, do that.
If the search result features blog posts, do that.
Trust the search result.

We do a lot of work with tour guides, and they want to rank for “best tour guide in…” or “best tour of…” style keywords.

Not. Going. To. Happen.

These search results feature comparison sites, review sites, directories and blog posts. It isn’t an SEO job to get featured on the results page, it’s about getting featured in the blog posts, featured on the “best of” lists.

Sometimes it’s just impossible to get your website ranked, but it may still be possible to get your website visible… and that might be even better.

08/09/2026

07/09/2026

Walk before you can run…

You’ve just launched your new website.
Or you’ve had a website for a while, but it doesn’t rank for much.

You need to be realistic, and strategic, about the keywords you’re going after, because if you’re too ambitious early on it can be really damaging, and leave you stuck without any traffic at all, for months or even years.

Let’s use a carpentry business as an example.
(not real numbers, but you get the idea)

You can’t rank for “carpentry” (10,000 search p/m)
The websites on this results page are well established, some are around for decades, Google “trusts” them. They have hundreds (even thousands) of backlinks, and hundreds of reviews. Forget about ranking for this.

You can’t rank for “carpentry services dublin” (1,000 search p/m)
If you’re in the capital city (or you want to get work there) this search result is similar to the one above. This is a long-term target. What’s a little easier is to rank in the local maps results, so start there.

So what do I do?

You can rank for “custom oak staircase kildare” (50 searches p/m)
Break down your services into smaller component parts, and use work that you’ve actually done. If you do different types of work, in different locations, each week, that’s 50+ keyword targets per year and thousands of clicks.

While you’re doing this, Google is watching, and in time you will rank for the more competitive terms. But if you go after them day 1, you’ll never get them.

02/09/2026

What is topical authority?

There’s literally 100’s of ranking factors, but often our focus is something called Topical Authority; a website’s expertise and credibility on a particular subject.

Google’s mission is to provide their users with the most relevant and reliable information available, so they analyse the depth, quality and quantity of content on every website, we call this topical authority.

This is the theory; your site won’t rank for a single post on a topic, but if you publish 25 posts, they all have an increased chance of ranking. Every topic is different; some may only need 10 posts, some might need 50 posts or more.

How do I know?
There’s tools available online, free and paid, that will build topical maps for you based on your keyword targets and what your competitors rank for. AI is also pretty good at statistical work, but this is still a little hit and miss.

01/09/2026

Your website isn't a marketing channel…

A lot of websites, especially in the B2B world have industry pages, describing what they can do for businesses in a particular industry.

This is fine, but here’s my issue.

People think that these pages will bring in people who work in that industry, and they won't. If there’s no traffic for a term, no matter how good the page is, it won’t generate any traffic. That’s just not how search works.

People might view these pages once they get to your website, but that’s not the page they land on from the search results.

An example from a 2025 client.
They provide services in a number of sectors.

They have industry pages for “Planning & Construction” “Power Generation & Data Centres” “Life Sciences” and a few others.

These pages get zero search traffic… none at all.
People view them, but they’ve always viewed another page first; they’ve used a different search term. But why?...

People use search terms related to what they need, a problem they’re trying to solve, not terms related to themselves, their job role, or their industry.

If you want to target people in a specific industry, there’s two options;

LinkedIn
You can use LinkedIn audience tools, either ads or Sales Navigator, to target people based on industry, location, job role and other categories.

Cold Outreach
Research all of the companies in the industry you’re targeting and reach out to people that work there; phone call, email etc.

There’s no issue with industry pages, but you need to get the right people to visit your website first, because your website isn’t a marketing channel.