- You need to measure your website performance to measure SEO
- Get a FREE SEO Audit Today
- There are some simple SEO techniques you can apply your self
- On-page SEO is something you can do for your own website
- Backlinks are great but internal linking is also important
- There are free tools that can help you if you
Some simple facts about SEO
If you have an existing site that is just isn’t working for you take advantage of our FREE Search Engine Optimisation Audit. If you are not sure how your website is set up just book your audit & we can go through the whole process to get your site checked out.
Useful definitions about SEO every business owner should know
What is SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the technique of optimising your website & online content so that a search engine (like Google, Bing or Yahoo) chooses to show your content in the top results for searches of certain keywords or phrases.
What is SERP?
Search Engine Results Page (SERP) is the page you see after entering a query into Google, Bing, Yahoo, or any other search engine. It can contain results from sources other than web pages like results on maps showing the location of places. They can also contain content from “People Also Asked” type questions.
What is a Sitemap?
A sitemap is a file that lists the pages or content on your website, it also includes information about when the page was last updated & how often the page should be crawled. These are the files that search engines use to find content on your website quickly. These files can be made automatically by your Content Management System (CMS).
What is indexing? (or crawling)
Indexing is the term used when a search engine has scanned your website. You can help with this process by telling the different search engines where your sitemap is located. The frequency your site is visited will vary depending on the amount of content you create & update. You can check if your site is being indexed by typing “site:www.yourwebsiteaddress.co.uk” If nothing appears call us immediately!
Call us! 01706304450What does <H1> mean?
<H1> is an hypertext markup language (HTML) tag. HTML tags are the building blocks of the internet, they allow computers to read webpages & show humans the results. Google & other search engines use them to identify the content of a webpage. There should be one <H1> tag per page with <H2>,<H3>,<H4>,<H5> & <H6> nested on the page.
What is alt text?
alt text is an additional piece of HTML code used to descript the contents of an image file. Search engines can not ‘see’ inside image files, using alt text helps them understand the content of an image file, they also help people who are using screen readers to read your content
If you would rather just sit back & relax book your FREE Search Engine Optimisation Audit Here
Ræcan SEO team
Step 1 – Use Google for SEO!
Google is a great tool for business to use. Over 90% of search traffic globally uses Google.
It is free to set up your own Google reports for your business website (or personal). You do need to add some code to your website, if you use a website builder you should be able to follow instructions on your platform to set up your Google accounts.
If you are not happy adding code to your website you can e-mail instructions to your developer.
Google Analytics
Installing Google Analytics will help you to see how visitors interact with your webpages, you can also link your Google Analytics account to your Google Search Console account to get more detailed reports.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is one of the most important tools for SEO. When you set up your Google Search Console account you need to varify the ownership of your website. Once varified you need to add a link to your websites sitemap, then you can see which terms your website is appearing for the search results on Google, you can also see which pages Google chooses for different search terms.
Google My Business
Google My Business is now Google My Business Profile but still needs verification via post but you can get started without verification. For performance in local search, Google My Business Profile is crucial. Make sure you complete as much of your profile as you can.
Before you take advantage of the Google Ads voucher make sure your site is ready to perform organically (it appears in search results you are going to target)
Google Reviews
Google Reviews are free! Ask your customers to complete reviews on Google and ask them about the specific service you provided. Reviews on Google are visible in SERP map results.
Step 2 – Select your SEO keywords & phrases
Selecting your SEO keywords & phrases is the centre of your on-page SEO activity.
- When you are selecting keywords start with a list of products or services you provide.
- Then apply SEO modifiers to your words & phrases.
- Modifiers include locations, price, language & brand names, you will find it difficult to rank for broad terms immediately
- eg. abroad term like “telemarketing companies” (we currently rank middle page2) is harder to rank for that a modified term “telemarketing companies bury” where we currently rank higher (rankings change over time so we keep this under review!)
- You might have noticed that one of our listings is not actually our website!
- When you are starting to work on your website just pick a few terms that you want to target.
- Review your performance over time, it will take a short time for you to start appearing in the search results you want to target.
Step 3 – Write SEO content
How Do you write SEO content? Fortunately, there are plenty of tools that you can use to help you with identifying your keywords, the one thing they won’t do is write your content for you until now! Read this article How to write a blog post in 5 easy steps
- The best advice is to create your initial content, write down your idea, expand on key areas, include links or add extra content with explanations & start editing.
- You might want to try something like draftin.com where you can use the Hemmingway Mode to just write, editing comes later (it takes a bit of practice but it can really help you produce content).
- Google Docs can be a good way for you to get your initial thoughts on paper, on your smartphone use the speaker mode to input directly from speech.
- Look at your competitor’s content, if they have a page with 500 words then you need to create content of a similar length. (We need to be between 10,000 & 3,000 for this post!)
- Break up your post using headings & don’t forget to include images & graphics. When you are using images, make sure you give them a descriptive name, include relevant alt text & make sure the file is not too large.
- When you have new products or services create content relating to them.
- You also want to include links in your content that supports the rest of your website. Have a look back over this post & see if you can identify the different tactics we have used.
- You can even start getting more advanced & start producing content clusters!
Final step – Think about outsourcing your SEO
Outsourcing your SEO is a great way to concentrate on your core business. Depending on how much you want to be involved Ræcan can produce your content & optimise your website for SEO. There are other factors that affect your search rankings. These are more technical but you can check things like your site speed using this Site Speed Test tool from Google this gives you the results you are going to need with the next update to the Google Search Algorithm.
Outsourcing overseas, be careful! It takes time to show up in search results. We have all received e-mails promising position 1 on Google Search, these promises are hollow, to say the least, & generally require the use of massive backlinking sites that are constantly being disavowed by the Google Search Algorithm. Off-page SEO requires a systematic approach, if you have got this far you are ready to give us a no-obligation call to discuss how we can help you with your complete website SEO.
Call us! 01706 304450