What we’re talking about
Search engine optimisation, more commonly known as SEO, is
the technical term for setting up your website so that search engines like
Google can easily understand everything that’s on it – and then surface it in
search results when it’s relevant. Whenever someone types in a question or
terms into a search bar, the search engine they’re using ranks all the websites
it knows of in terms of relevance to that search.
There are thousands of factors search engines use to rank
results – and not even SEO experts know them all, no matter what they might
promise – but these are a few key ones: if your website contains content
relevant to the search; if your site loads quickly and efficiently; if your
website has a good reputation (ie, do other websites reference it and link to
it); and if users spend time on it once they arrive at your site. The websites
the search engine decides would be most useful to the searcher appear first. If
your website is relevant, it will probably appear somewhere within the search
results, but taking the time to optimise it from a search engine perspective
will help it rank higher.
Why it’s important
The better your SEO, the higher you’ll rank in search
results. As you probably know, most people don’t get past the first few
listings or pages when they search for something. So, putting in the effort to
make sure you rank higher for relevant searches will mean that more people see
your site when they are searching. That translates into more website visits,
more engagement and, all being well, more sales too.
Things to note
SEO affects how your business appears in organic results.
When you use a search engine like Google, there are a few different types of
listings. The very top results on the page are paid listings, which are usually
marked with the word ‘ad’. Businesses get here by bidding for ad spots. SEO
techniques won’t affect these paid results, but instead determine your ranking
in the organic listings that appear below.
Keywords are… key.
The first and most important decision you’ll need to make is what keywords you want to improve your ranking for. Keywords aren’t just single words, but the words and phrases someone might type into a search engine. The key is getting the balance right between broad enough terms that people regularly search to find business like yours, and specific enough terms that you have a chance of ranking high. For example, it will be easier to improve your ranking for a term like ‘vegan cheesecake in London’ than just ‘cheesecake’.
Keep informational keywords in mind. People tend to use
search engines for answers or solutions to problems they are having, and so
tend to search using questions. Think about the last time you used a search
engine – did you type in a question or the name of a product or brand? It was
probably the former. These types of keywords are called informational keywords.
To find informational keywords that might be relevant to your business, think about
the kinds of questions your business, product or website might answer.
Search engines are smart. There are some general principles
that will help improve your SEO that we’ll outline here but, above all, the key
is to make sure your website and content is truly relevant to the search terms
you are trying to rank for. Trying to fool a search engine using hacks or
tricks won’t work – and might well result in your website ranking lower.
How to improve your SEO
1. Choose appropriate keywords. Decide what keywords you
want to improve your rankings for. These should be terms that lots of people
search for and that are relevant to your business. For ideas, type terms into
Google and see what suggested results pop up for these popular search queries.
You can also use free online tools like Google Keyword Planner and Uber suggest
to get data about how many people search for a particular keyword and how
‘competitive’ it is to rank for that keyword. Try to make a list of three to
five keywords that you want to target and rank these by priority.
2. Update your web page titles and descriptions. Once you
know what keywords you’re targeting, make sure that these keywords appear
within your site’s structure. For this and the following step, you’ll need to
make edits within your website editor or have the person who handles your
website make them. You want to make sure that the titles and descriptions for
each page on your website include keywords and explain what is on the page.
Make sure that these edits are sensible and also reflect the content on the
page – search engines are smart and will detect any ‘keyword stuffing’.
3. Use descriptive filenames. When a search engine reviews
your website, it reviews all elements of it, not just the text on it. So, check
your images – choose filenames for your photos and videos that describe what’s
represented within them (including your target keywords, if appropriate). That
way, search engines can pick those up as well as the copy accompanying them on
page.
4. Craft relevant content. Think about what other content –
blog posts, guides and copy – you can include on your website around your
products and services that could be useful to a searcher. For example, if
you’re making skincare products, you could write articles about treating acne.
This type of content not only gives more reasons for someone to stick around on
your site, but it also gives search engines additional relevant content to
surface.
5. Get some good backlinks. Besides relevant content, one
other major factor search engines consider when deciding how to rank your
website is its reputation, measured in the number of quality backlinks to your
site. A backlink is any link to your website from an external site, and the
better the SEO on the site that’s linking to you, the higher-quality the
backlink. Getting backlinks is another challenge, but one good way is to be
mentioned in articles online – take a look at our guide to getting press
coverage to help on that.
6. Make your site faster. We’ve dug into the more DIY aspects
of SEO, but there are also some technical aspects that affect rankings as well,
like site speed and structure. This is where external help comes in handy in
the shape of a web developer with SEO expertise. Once you’ve got the basics
covered, bring in that specialist know-how.
7. Track your progress. As the old adage goes, you can’t
manage what you don’t measure. Once you’ve implemented some of these SEO
changes, see if they’ve made a difference by monitoring the number of visits to
your website. It can take some time (days or weeks) for the search engine to
re-review your site, so don’t expect changes overnight. And keep monitoring
your target keywords, too, to make sure that they’re still the ones it makes
sense to be prioritising.
Key takeaways
• Search engine optimisation (SEO) is all about helping your
website rank higher in the results pages for search engines like Google.
• When deciding what keywords and search terms to target,
think about the kind of questions and issues that people might be searching for
that are related to your product and business.
• You can make some basic but useful SEO improvements yourself, but at some point it could be useful to bring in an expert to handle more technical changes to the website.
Article Source: Courier Media