For many people we talk to, SEO is a bit of a mystery. While clients engage us to promote their products and services through PR campaigns, we often come across client websites that are not properly optimised for SEO - when that happens we provide basic SEO guidance as part of the PR service. Here are some of the simpler SEO tricks that almost anyone with a website should be able to employ:
- Know why you have a website It sounds a bit silly, but it is important. You need to know the primary reason(s) for having a website before you can optimise it effectively. Think about what actions you'd like visitors to take when they come to your site. Typical actions you'd like visitors to take could include: - Purchase directly from the site - Make an enquiry that you can follow up - Pay a visit to your real store/restaurant/venue
- Create a list of keywords and key phrases that relate to your site and the actions you want visitors to take You'll need a short list of the main phrases/words that you expect visitors to search for and a (much) longer list that you'd expect to be less frequently searched-for.
- Make the titles and headings of your pages keyword-rich By titles and headings I specifically mean the <title> and <h1> tags on your pages; Google and other search engines use them to get a feel for what your pages are about. So, if your company, 'Cuddles of Caversham' sells orange fluffy toys from its website, the title of your home page should contain something like 'Buy orange fluffy toys|Cuddles of Caversham'. Don't have pages with duplicate titles - make each title relevant to what's on that page.
- Add content to your site that will be valuable to your visitors Think of the web as a voting machine; other websites vote by providing links to other useful/interesting websites. Make sure your site gets as many 'votes' as possible by providing content on your site that is relevant, interesting, valuable to the visitors you're trying to attract. By providing useful content that is keyword-rich (not keyword-stuffed!) you'll make your site more attractive as a target for the all important links from other sites.
- Get links! This is the big one. One of the primary ways Google identifies a page as being worthy of your attention is by the number and quality of links from external sites to that page (the web is a voting machine). So, if your pages have lots of good quality links - from authoritative sites that are relevant to the content on your site - you're well on your way to a good ranking. BTW don't go and buy links - buying links is actively discouraged by Google; instead, aim for links from authoritative sites like news sources, influential bloggers and the like.
- Be patient When you make these changes don't expect results overnight or even in a few days. In most cases you'd expect to see changes over weeks (or even months).
There's much (much) more you can do with SEO, but if you follow this set of basic tips you'll be well on the way to improving your search rankings. Good luck and let us know in the comments how you get on. If you'd like to know more about how we can help you build your profile online, use the contact us page to get in touch.
