.png)
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can be complicated but there are some easy steps you can follow to make sure you have all the basics covered to get your website ranking in Google & other search engines.
1. Know Your Target Keywords
Before embarking on your SEO journey you really need to know what keywords you would like to rank for. This may take a little research and we highly recommend the Google Keyword Planner to discover how people may be searching for your product/business. You want to focus on the way your potential customers would search for you rather than how you personally describe your business.
2. Write Appropriate Page Content
Google rewards unique and relevant page content. Make sure that the written content on your page reflects what that page is about, is unique, and contains your target keyword. For Example a web page about Baseball cards, should have written content that includes the keyword "baseball cards". It sounds simple, but often people focus on beautiful web design and the keywords get forgotten!
Avoid duplicating content across your website. Google can penalise you heavily for this.
3. Don't Forget Behind The Scenes
Your website isn't indexed and ranked by people, it's done by robots, so you need to make sure that the robots can see what your page is about. There are lots of ways to do this:
Use Keyword-Rich Page Titles. You should create a unique title for each page on your website. Keep it brief and concise. If you are a local business or service a local area you can include the location in your page title.
Use clean, search-friendly URLs: avoid random strings of numbers and letters that don't add any value to your user or a search engine
Use the Meta Description to tell the search engine a quick summary of what your page is about. Use a couple of sentences here and take care when writing them as this is usually the snippet Google will use on the search results page.
4. What About Images And Video?
Search Engines cannot see your images or watch your videos. You need to help by adding ALT Text that describes your image (and includes your target keywords). For Videos you can add a transcript.
5. Don't Block Search Engines From Indexing Your Pages
You can block search engines from indexing a page if it is not meant to be public, or for internal use only. You can do this by adding a "robots.txt" file to your website. This file is placed in the root directory of your site.
The big mistake many people make is including pages in this file that they actually want Google to index.
6. Organise Your Website
A well structured website is not only easier for users to navigate, it is also easier for search engines to understand. Try to create a natural flowing hierarchy with pages grouped under relevant topics within your menu.
7. Focus On User Experience
A poor user experience not only leads to poor search engine ranking, but also may lose you the customer that you have finally driven to your website. Most internet users now browse the web on mobile devices so you need to think mobile-first in your web design and make sure your website is responsive to multiple devices.
Some of the major issues we come across are poor website speed and navigability on mobile devices. This can cost you greatly. Check out how your website scores on mobile with Google's Mobile Friendly Test.
8. Use Free Tools To Help You
Google Search Console is free to use and allows you to upload a sitemap of your website to help Google find and index the pages. It also gives you valuable information about certain pages that may be having issues ranking and can be a really helpful tool. Do yourself a favour and try it.
We hope this helps you get started on navigating the basics of SEO. If you need more advice or a helping hand please get in touch with us for a free consult.
Comments