SEO has been around for over 15 years and more and more businesses are taking notice and upskilling themselves in this area.
Why Invest in SEO?
Whether you are doing your own SEO or hiring someone to do SEO for you, it’s clear to see that over time you can get improvement in your organic search traffic.
This means that you may be found in Google for more search terms and you may appear higher up in the results page.
Essentially, you have a better chance of getting customers clicking on your websites instead of your competitors.
SEO is generally much more affordable than online advertising: once you start ranking, you are getting free traffic to your site.
Yes, it takes a bit of upkeep and time but it’s well worth the investment.
What Can You Do To Improve Your SEO?
1. Google Search Console
First, make sure you have set up a Google Search Console account.
This will help you measure your success over time. Google Analytics is also a useful tool which will help you track your progress.
If you have access to other SEO tools such as SEMRush you can run more detailed reports to analyse possible website issues.
2. Fix Technical Issues
Address any technical issues that may show up in Google Search Console, or pass these to your web developer to fix on your behalf.
3. Ensure That Your Content Is Formatted Correctly
- Is your content appropriately structured with headings and bulleted lists to allow the user to easily scan through the page?
- Have you used related images to the content to aid the users understanding of the topic that you are writing about?
4. Using Keywords in Your Page Content
If you want to rank for a particular keyword then make sure the keyword is in the text on that web page.
Where possible try to use variations of that keyword throughout your page.
For example, if your keyword is ‘fitness classes’ also use related terms such as workout sessions, exercise class etc…in your page.
5. Keyword Planning
Use a keyword planner tool such as Uber Suggest to search for the keywords you are interested in ranking for.
This tool will give you alternative suggestions for keywords which may have a higher search volume or may have less competition from your original idea.
6. Add Internal Links To Your Pages
Make sure that you have links from other pages on your website to the page that you are working on.
This helps Google find the webpage and shows that it is important enough content for you to link to from other pages.
7. Add Links to External Websites
Don’t be afraid to link out to external websites (a site other than your own) if the content is relevant to the topic(s) of your page.
User experience is paramount, so if you are linking out to a site which will help the user in their quest for information then this is a positive signal.
Providing quality advice and information to your readers will keep them coming back to your site.
8. Add ALT text to your images
Check that you have alt text for your images, this tells Google and users of assistive technologies what information the image conveys.
If you have used an image for decorative purposes only then you do not need to provide ALT text.
Where you have added a link to an image the ALT text should describe the destination page that the link will take them to.
ALT text should describe any text on the image, and any key messages the image shows.
If the image is a graph or an infographic with lots of information then you should place the description elsewhere, such as below the image.
In this case, the ALT could read alt=”See text below image for full description of the graph”.
9. Look for Link Opportunities From External Websites
Links to your website from other websites is key for SEO so you should endeavour to obtain new ‘backlinks’ over time.
Some methods you may want to consider in order to generate backlinks:
- Adding your website to business listing directories
- Finding broken links and providing that websites webmaster with an alternative link on your website
- Offering to write guest posts
- Searching for relevant sites in your industry or sites which compliment what you do and asking them to link to your site
- Searching for mentions of your brand online, where there is currently no link to your site and asking for one
- Reaching out to partners or clients and writing testimonials on their site – ask for a link to your site from your name or profile
In essence, when looking at SEO for your website you need to ensure that any technical issues are fixed, that your content is optimised and that you are generating links to your website over time.
Regularly updating your content and optimising your content for your customers will help improve your standing in the Search Engine Results Page.