Webartifice
Search Engine Optimisation
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a process that encourages search engines to place your website content as high as possible in their results for phrases that are relative to your industry.
A successful SEO campaign will build more traffic to your website, which will, in turn, create more leads and sales. I can help you by developing an SEO strategy to help your business.
SEO – Where to Start
Once you’ve watched the video above, you’ll know how SEO can help businesses, but all websites are different. Not all follow the simplistic model Google uses in their explainer.
Making a Case for SEO
The first thing to do is decide if you need SEO. To answer this question, you need to identify your website’s goals. Once you have recognised your goals, you can decide whether search engine optimisation will help you reach them.
Let’s explore those goals and how search engine optimisation might help you achieve them.
Identifying Website Goals
I mention some popular goals below, but you need to determine the most appropriate for your business, and your primary goal may be something completely different. After all, every business is unique.
If you can identify specific goals, you’ll be able to plan more effectively and have a clearer idea of what’s required to meet them.
Improve Sales
Improving sales is a popular goal, and SEO is often a worthwhile investment that will help you achieve your targets.
However, online success depends on the type of business you have and how far down the line your business is in its development.
Selling from your website can be more challenging than first assumed, so a good online marketing strategy is essential, with SEO being part of the mix. Unfortunately, SEO is a slow burner, so you can’t expect instant success.
Improve Exposure
Letting people know that your business exists is an obvious goal for any website.
Search engine optimisation has a role to play in achieving awareness, and it will have a positive impact.
Local SEO will play an essential part in your overall marketing strategy if you do business locally.
If you have a national company, success will depend on the level of commitment you can devote to SEO.
Provide a Point of Contact
Established businesses often have a website that reinforces their brand and provides a point of contact for their customers.
If these are the only goals for the website, SEO may be restricted to ensuring your website appears for brand-based search queries.
SEO is very effective when working with popular brands, and when working with smaller brands it works well when used with other marketing techniques.
Goals Identified – What’s next?
Once you have your goals identified, you need to have a marketing plan to help you achieve your objectives. Within that plan, you must decide where SEO sits.
You may have to prioritise other marketing methods over SEO, both in time or budget, so this needs some careful thought.
SEO is not the silver bullet to business success, regardless of what you might read. It is, however, a cost-effective method of online marketing that shows good returns in the long term.
The most important thing to understand is that SEO may take a long time to show a return on your investment. So if you need to make a fast buck, look at other marketing techniques first.
The Next Steps
Let’s assume you’ve decided to use SEO to help you reach your goals. It is possible to tackle search engine optimisation yourself, but you must dedicate a significant amount of time to research before getting around to doing any work.
Software is available to help you with the many tasks you’ll need to undertake. Google even provides some help with their Search Console. However, you need some SEO knowledge for tools to work well for you, and of course, worthwhile software that helps with more complex tasks is expensive.
The best solution is to get a professional to look after your SEO. Then, you’ll be able to spend more time making your business a success while they concentrate on making your website a success. In the long run, the benefits will outweigh the costs.
SEO Help
If you’d like help with SEO please contact me to discuss your website.
A Brief Guide to SEO
You can’t pay search engines to appear in organic search results. So, where do you start?
At one time, some SEO practitioners advocated fooling search engines into thinking that websites were relevant to search queries. Thankfully, things have moved on.
The approach taken to search engine optimisation will depend on your objectives. For example, if you wish to improve your local client base, you should prioritise local SEO. However, your tactics would be different if you ran an online store that needed to promote online sales.
Does SEO Work?
In short, yes. However, it’s not a quick fix. Search engine optimisation is labour-intensive, and results can take a frustratingly long time before they become evident. Therefore, patience and belief in the strategy are essential.
How Search Engines Work
Search engines place your listing in their results by ranking your pages against other pages that it thinks are relevant to a query that a searcher has used. They do this using algorithms that they constantly develop. You can read more about this on Google’s website.
For example, you might have heard that Google analyses over 200 signals to rank your page. Although Google doesn’t explicitly tell us what they are, they provide guidelines. The guidelines offer generic advice based on Google’s idea of good web design and content but are nonetheless valuable.
Aspects of Search Engine Optimisation
There are many aspects to SEO, here’s a brief and simplified rundown of some of the things that can be done.
Research
Assessing Your Online Market
To complete successful search engine optimisation, first, we must conduct research to identify:
- The topics your visitors might search around.
- The potential of those topics.
- Given the competition, whether it’s realistic to appear in search results for these topics.
- Whether there are any opportunities to meet visitors’ expectations that your competitors have not identified or addressed.
Knowing what content to create to appear in the topic related searches and how much effort might be required is essential; it guides us in what topics are worth targeting.
Assessing Your Website
Once we have this data, we can assess the content of your website to see if it fulfils the visitors’ expectations, whether there is the opportunity to expand on topics, and how well the website presents the required information.
This assessment will guide all other aspects of SEO.
On-Page SEO
What is on-page SEO?
On-page SEO relates to optimising elements of a web page crucial to search engines. For example, optimisation might include rewriting or creating text, headings, title tags, meta descriptions, structured data and ensuring images and other media are optimised etc.
How to do on-page SEO
Optimising webpage content is the most critical task when optimising your website.
First, we must ensure sufficient information about your product or service is available, and we do this by assessing and optimising text and other content.
It’s also essential to ensure that we present well-structured and coherent information. We look at website and page structure, content tone, spelling and grammar to ensure that everything is on message and unambiguous. Users must identify what they are looking for quickly and easily, and search engines need to have a clear understanding of your page.
On-page search engine optimisation also considers popular keywords used by prospective visitors and requires extensive research. It also needs some imagination and the ability to place yourself in the user’s shoes.
Some tiny bits of content aren’t visible on your web pages, but they are essential to search engines and visitors; we also need to take care of them.
Why on-page SEO is important
Visitors and search engines need to understand what your website is about, and they can only do that by assessing your content. Therefore, getting your message across quickly and effectively is crucial. Creating focused, well-presented content is the key.
Technical Search Engine Optimisation
Technical SEO looks at your website’s nuts and bolts and ensures nothing is broken or causing an obstruction when search engines come calling. Search engines need to access your content as efficiently as possible.
To ensure nothing is untoward, we’d look at site architecture, navigation structure, speed, broken links, mobile-friendliness, and whether the site is easy to use. Not things that, at first glance, seem relative to SEO but are extremely important.
Why Technical SEO is important
Google and other search engines are always trying to improve their search results. Their goal is to present searchers with the most relevant, easy to access content available.
For ease of access, content has to be delivered quickly and offer a great user experience. In addition, many searches are now completed on mobile devices, so a website must work well on phones, tablets, and traditional desktop browsers.
Once you gain a visitor, you will likely want them to browse your website for supporting information, contact details, or in the case of e-commerce, to make a purchase. Therefore, a website that is easy to use is essential.
Off-Page Search Engine Optimisation
Creating a well-optimised website is only part of the battle. You need to let search engines know that your site is available, and you need to show them that it holds valuable content worthy of exposure. You might employ the following tactics to encourage search engines to rank your website above your competitors.
Link Building
Search engines consider the number and type of links you have pointing at your website when working out how valuable it is; think of a link as a vote. From Google’s inception, links have been a fundamental part of their algorithm – the computer program they use to rank your website. It’s still important today.
The more trustworthy your website is perceived, the higher your website will appear in search results.
If search engines think the website providing the link is a reputable source with good authority, it will consider that the link has greater value than a link from a less reputable site. Conversely, if the inbound link is from a website with a very poor reputation, it may damage your ranking.
Gaining inbound links is essential, but you must be super careful about how you go about it.
Spreading the Word
You can use Social Media to generate interest in your website or engage in discussions online through forums, blogs, etc. It can be a good plan if you have the time.
Other strategies can be employed, such as guest blogging, influencer marketing and gaining brand mentions.
My SEO Process
Assess
Assess the goals and aspirations of the business.
Research
Research the opportunities and the competition.
Plan
Develop an SEO strategy to meet the business’s goals and set achievable time-specific targets.
Act
Implement the plan, assess success, and repeat.
Read more about my SEO process.
Summing Up
That’s a summary of search engine optimisation, hopefully, in a language everyone can understand. Of course, some might say it’s an over-simplistic description, but I’ve intentionally kept it that way.
SEO’s a complex subject with thousands of articles written about it each year, and if it interests you, I suggest you start researching it using your favourite search engine. However, I say that with a caveat – don’t believe all you read; much misinformation is available.
Search engine optimisation has changed significantly over time, and it can feel like a never-ending job. There is always something new to learn and address, with search engines in total control and constantly moving the goalposts. As a result, keeping on top of the changes can be very difficult for website owners.
Engaging a search engine optimisation expert allows you to sidestep the technicalities of SEO and will enable you to get on with running your business.
Free SEO Audits
I don’t provide free SEO audits. Free audits are often computer-generated and offer no real insight into problems; in my opinion, they serve to worry or confuse.
Rather than generating a report of questionable worth, let’s start with a conversation where I find out about your business, your website, goals, and concerns. Then, I will follow up with a customised proposal containing options for the next steps.
I think you’ll find this of much greater value than a free SEO audit.
Contact me today to start the ball rolling.