So many resources make SEO complex. Often laden with technical jargon, rarely explaining anything beyond theory.  Ultimately there are Three Core Components for a Strong SEO Strategy

One: Technical website setup

Two: Content

Three: Links

So we’re going to try and break SEO into its most basic parts and show you how to understand and start to take control of your own SEO strategy. Basically SEO focuses on nothing else but expanding your visibility in organic search results. It helps businesses rank more pages higher in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages.) In turn, this drives more visitors to your site, increasing your awareness and the chance for more conversions, enquiry or to download information.

Ask yourself when was the last time you ventured beyond page one of Google? I’m guessing 9 out of 10 have not ventured past page one for quite some time. To us Search Engine 

Optimisation is possibly the most overlooked yet most valuable digital marketing muscle a brand can invest in.

But with so many SEO techniques, it’s become almost impossible to determine which ones to stick to and which you can safely ignore. It can seem overwhelming. How your website ranks is largely determined by on-page factors, and how your page ranks in search results is largely determined by off-page factors.

On-page SEO is one of the fastest ways to improve your Google rankings, mainly because you can start to optimise your page in about two to three minutes and start to see a ranking boost as search engines start to reassess your page.

There is one more reason why you should be using SEO.

The discipline helps you position your brand throughout almost the entire buying journey. In turn, it can ensure that your marketing strategies match the new buying behaviour. 

Because, as Google admitted themselves — customer behavior has changed forever. Today, more people use search engines to find products or services than any other marketing channel. 18% more shoppers choose Google over Amazon. 136% more prefer the search engine to other retail websites. And B2B buyers conduct up to 12 searches, on average, before engaging with a brand.

What's more, they prefer going through the majority of the buying process on their own. In a recent survey from HubSpot 77% of people said they researched a brand before engaging with it.

So to help, we’ve put together some more detail on a few key elements to help you  get started and feel more empowered and involved with your own website’s SEO.

CHECK THE LOAD SPEED OF YOUR SITE

A slow website will penalise your ranking and people are impatient; if it takes longer than a couple seconds to load, chances are people will bounce and go elsewhere. I liken this to going to a restaurant or into a shop and waiting too long to be served or acknowledged - most of us would turn and walk away.  Here’s a free site to test your website speed.

READABLE CONTENT

Time is precious and people don’t have enough of it. So write content that can be easily understood. That means look at your headings, the line spacing, line height, font, type and don’t overdo colours on fonts, italics and bold, a key test is also  and check your website on a mobile site. There are a number of free tools to help you score the readability of your site including Readable.com Telstra smarter business, diib and Test Mate.

PROPERLY FORMAT YOUR PAGE

A website should be neat, clear, organised, and uncluttered, a little like a retail shop, if you enter a shop with little signage, that’s cluttered, and you can’t find what you’re looking for you’ll walk out. Same applies to your website. Consider your font size and type, use coloured text, bold font, and italics sparingly. Headings, bullet points, and check-lists make it easy for visitors to quickly review content. Make sure the UX or User Experience is optimal.

TITLE TAGS

The first thing a user sees when they search for a keyword is the snippet on the Google Search results page. The snippet includes your page title, url, and meta description.The title should be short and concise. It impacts your ranking for keywords. Your meta description should accurately describe the content your page offers. While it doesn’t directly impact your search ranking, it will impact your click- through rate. So be clear!

Here’s our tips

1. Keep the title short. Google cuts off anything past 70 characters.

2. Use keywords you want to rank for in the page title.

3. Go back and add page titles to any of pages currently missing one

CONTENT

Every time you use a search engine, you’re looking for content— information on a particular issue or problem. Content might come in different formats - text, a blog post, a web page. But it could also be a video, product recommendation, reviews or even a business listing. It’s all content.

And for SEO, it’s what helps gain greater search visibility.

Here’s two reasons why:

1. Regardless of what they’re looking for, the more of it you publish, the higher your chance for greater search visibility.

2. Search engines use content to determine how to rank a page. It’s the idea of relevance between a page and a person’s search query that we talked about earlier.

While crawling a page, they determine its topic. Analysing elements like page length or its structure helps them assess its quality. Based on this information, search algorithms can match a person’s query with pages they consider the most relevant to it.

The process of optimising content begins with keyword research.

RESEARCH YOUR KEYWORDS

When you use keyword research tools, it helps you identify what kinds of content users are looking for on any given topic. Make sure you prioritise time for keyword research.When selecting keywords, you should also keep the purpose of your website in mind. Opt for transactional keywords if the main intention is sales, or informational keywords if your website aims to provide readers with important information.

Here’s our tips

1. Try Übersuggest: it’s a fantastic keyword research tool. It goes through all the recommendations of Google Suggest and shows you the most appropriate search term.

2. Simply search Google: Type in something that you think people looking for your product or service would type in to Google search and look at Google’s suggestions as you type. This is based on the most heavily searched keywords that your current search is matching. This will give you some ideas for long-tailed keyword suggestions (short phrases) based on your short-tailed entry. On a tight time or money budget, this is a great solution!

3. Google Keyword Planner: The Keyword Planner is part of the AdWords advertising program. You need a valid AdWords account to use this free tool. You can start searching for keywords and suitable ideas as soon when you register. You can also enter websites and view suitable keywords based on their content. The tool also shows you information about the monthly search volume.

OPTIMISE YOUR IMAGES

Search engines can’t interpret the content of images so you need to help it with text support. That’s why using Alt text to describe your images is important: it allows search engines to understand the image content. And, if for some reason an image can’t be loaded, the Alt attribute (alternative description) displays the specified alternative text. Alt text also allows visually impaired users who use text- to-speech software to access web content. The Alt attribute is integrated within the image link in the HTML source code:

Here’s our tips

1. Go through your website and check if you’ve added ALT attributes to images.

2. Add an ALT attribute for every image on your website.

3. Use the ALT text to describe the corresponding image.

FIND AND RECTIFY BROKEN LINKS

Error code 404 (file not found) - nasty! It’s up there with declined. It creates a negative user experience, and it interrupts search engine crawling. If search engines find too many 404 errors on your website, they take it as a sign that your website is not properly maintained. But more often than not 404 errors occur because of broken links. In other words, you’ve inserted a link somewhere on your site that goes to a landing page that no longer exists. This often occurs when the destination URLs have been changed or written incorrectly. Make sure to periodically check for any broken links on your website (especially after a relaunch, or refresh or small URL changes).

Here’s our tips

1. Head to broken links - a free tool to see if your website displays any 404 errors.

2. Redirect the faulty URLs to the correct URLs using 301 redirects or replacing the anchor link. Check links in the navigation menu.

UPDATE YOUR GOOGLE MY BUSINESS PAGE

One of the vital tools to help grow your online presence is Google My Business. It allows you to show in your local area with ease, transforming the process that customers now take in finding the information, product or service they are searching for. Google My Business is a free tool, and will help drive your and support your Search efforts.

Here’s our tips

1. Check and complete your Google business profile,

2. Up date your opening hours particularly with changing environments at the moment

3. Include an accurate position locator so people can find you,

4. Categories describing your business

For a no obligation discussion about the health of your search function on your website, please contact us through our contact page.