A Simple Guide to Search Engine Optimisation
Unleash your website's full potential with our "Logic Digital Marketing Methodology" – a proven strategy that demystifies Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and puts control back in your hands. Imagine a steady stream of customers effortlessly drawn to your digital doorstep, turning their searches into your success. Join us on a transformative journey where simple tweaks could flood your online presence with relevant, eager customers.
Welcome to Practical Search Engine Optimisation Tips – a guide to breaking down barriers between your business and online success. Discover easy-to-implement tactics, elevating your site from obscurity to the dazzling heights of the first page in the Search Engine Results.
This is different from your typical SEO guide, which is filled with jargon. Here, you will find clarity, simplicity, and practicality. Picture your website gaining the recognition it deserves, with site traffic trending upwards. This isn't just growth; it's an evolution in how you approach the digital marketplace and how it responds to you.
Search Engine Optimisation – key terminology
Before proceeding, we must review some key concepts and jargon you’ll hear when people talk about search engine optimisation.
- Search Engine Algorithm - An algorithm is a set of rules determining the relevance and quality of web pages.
- Crawlers - Like meticulous archivists, crawlers traverse web pages, scrutinising content and indexing each page they find, listing it in the search engine results pages.
- Index - The index is a database that stores information gathered by crawlers, ready for retrieval when a search query demands it.
- Ranking Factors - Search engines judge web pages based on ranking factors, including keywords and backlinks, determining a page's position in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
- Backlinks - Backlinks are votes of confidence from other sites. The more from reputable sources, the more search engines consider your content valuable.
- Keywords - Keywords are the terms users enter into search engines, bridging what users seek with what your content provides.
- Metadata - Metadata includes meta titles and descriptions, providing search engines with information about your content.
Beware of the SEO Myths
SEO is riddled with myths that can derail well-intentioned efforts. Many incorrectly believe that SEO is a one-time setup. However, it’s a dynamic, continuous process demanding constant attention. It’s essential to stay informed about algorithm updates and SEO best practices. You must make regular content updates, develop good-quality backlinks, and develop user-friendly site architecture. Sustained SEO efforts lead to improved search visibility, organic traffic, and engagement.
Another myth is that paid advertising should be a priority for businesses. Studies show top organic search results gain the most clicks, emphasising the importance of ongoing SEO efforts.
Mastering Keywords
In SEO, keywords are essential for connecting user queries with relevant content. Mastering keyword research and integration is vital to ensuring your website speaks both search engine language and resonates with your audience. Success lies in finding keywords and balancing high search volume and low competition. Analyse competition, weave keywords naturally into your narrative, prioritise relevance over sheer numbers, and measure success through analytics.
Don’t forget that some fantastic tools are out there to help with keyword research, including https://keywordstrategytool.com/ - this tool was designed to enable you to carry out comprehensive keyword research quickly and efficiently. It will allow you to find all of the potential keywords that are relevant to your unique business.
Use keywords carefully – and in the right places!
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) involves strategically optimising web pages for increased visibility on search engines. While Google considers over 200 factors, six key places can significantly impact your web page's ranking:
1.) URL Slug: Ideally, include the keyword in the webpage's URL (e.g., https://www.yourwebsitename.com/insert-keyword-here). Note: Changing existing URLs may lead to issues, so consult your web developer.
2.) Title of the Page: Keep it between 65-70 characters, including the keyword. Going beyond may result in ellipses (...) in search listings.
3.) Content on the Page: Aim for 300-500 words, with the keyword in the first 100 characters. Natural mentions throughout the content can enhance optimisation.
4.) Meta-Description or Snippet: Limited to 150-160 characters, the snippet is crucial for user engagement. It’s the text that users see in the search engine results pages, so make it eye-catching and relevant to entice viewers! Like the title, exceeding the character limit will result in ellipses.
5.) Meta-Keyword: Other search engines may still use meta-keywords despite Google's reduced recognition. Include 4-6 related keywords/phrases, separated by commas.
6.) Alt-Tag for an Image: Every page should have an image with an alt-tag featuring the chosen keyword. This text helps search engine robots comprehend the significance of an image and helps anyone with a screen reader device understand the picture.
It's okay to leave your business name out of these places; focus instead on attracting new customers unaware of your name by using relevant, generic keyword phrases. Internal linking on each page can also prolong a visitor's stay on your site, positively impacting SEO. Try to ensure that hyperlinked text uses the chosen keyword to emphasise relevance.
By strategically placing keywords and incorporating internal links, you can optimise your website for search engines, enhancing visibility and effectively reaching potential customers.
Ensure that you avoid keyword overstuffing, are mindful of character limits, and ensure each page has a unique title and description. Test your success through tools like Google Search Console, where you can submit pages to be inspected to look for potential errors and issues.
Try to write for both SEO and User Experience.
In a world drowning in information, capturing and maintaining the reader's attention is an art and a necessity. Here are some top tips for structuring your content:
1.) Break content into digestible chunks with headings, subheadings, varied sentence lengths, and strategic paragraphing. Begin with a clear introduction, guide with descriptive headings, and conclude with a satisfying yet curious summary.
2.) Use images to break up chunks of text. Ensure that these are relevant to the content on the page, aren’t blurred (or too large, as this can slow the site down!), and aren’t broken links. They can help engage your website visitors further.
3.) Think about utilising video content – Did you know that posts with videos attract three times more inbound links than plain text posts, indicating their influence on SEO?
4.) Consider using customer quotes or other user-generated content. This can help convince customers by harnessing the concept of ‘social proof’ (where people are influenced by others with whom they share common characteristics).
5.) Check user engagement using Google Analytics to see how users interact with your content. Improved user engagement is measured through time spent on the page, lower bounce rate (or higher engagement rates if you use GA4), and higher social shares. If engagement levels are lower than expected, it might be time to review your page's content (and structure).
Content is more than words on the page. By honing readability and engagement, you resonate with your audience and increase the likelihood that they will actively engage with your website.
Off-page Optimisation Tips
Address your page load speed.
Huge images and videos hosted on your website can significantly slow page load times. Research from Savanta ComRes (reported by Kings College, London) in 2021 found that 49% of adults felt that their attention spans were shorter than they had previously been[1]. We may not quite have the attention span of a Goldfish, but the reality is that if a webpage takes too long to load (or doesn’t load at all!), visitors are likely to leave the site. We can address this by:
- Compressing images
- Hosting videos on third-party platforms (like YouTube and Vimeo)
- Upgrading servers
Although images and videos are a great way to grab visitors' attention – don’t let them slow down your site!
Be Mobile Friendly!
In 2022, there were 63.2 million mobile internet users in the UK[2], so ignore mobile visitors at your peril! If your website looks odd or doesn’t function correctly on a mobile device, you risk alienating many of the UK population, driving them to sites with mobile-friendly websites and apps.
So, what is mobile-friendly design? Put simply, it means a website seamlessly adapts to mobile devices—smartphones and tablets—providing readable text, well-spaced touch elements, and a responsive layout. This design, with fluid grids and media queries, ensures a smooth user experience on various devices.
The term 'mobile-friendly' gained prominence with smartphones in the late 2000s. Beyond user satisfaction and accessibility, mobile-friendly design is vital for SEO. Search engines, led by Google, prioritise such sites in rankings due to most internet traffic originating from mobile devices.
Consider two e-commerce businesses—one mobile-friendly, the other not. The former enjoys lower bounce rates, higher engagement, and increased conversions. The latter loses potential customers due to a poor mobile experience. Mobile-friendliness is an ongoing task; evolving devices and changing user behaviours demand continuous attention.
Make sure your website can be indexed!
Your site's visibility to search engines is paramount. Crawlability and indexation determine whether your site thrives or remains hidden from potential visitors. Imagine your website as a library—rich with information. However, if search engines can't crawl or index it, it becomes irrelevant, with traffic dwindling and leads drying up.
How can you ensure your website is indexable? Create a welcoming site architecture using a sitemap.xml file as a blueprint. Conduct a website audit to eliminate dead ends and consider carefully where noindex tags have been employed. Refine your robots.txt file to guide digital explorers. Internal linking (from one page to another relevant page, using hyperlinks) enhances site exploration by users and search engines alike. Don’t forget that tools like Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools can also help you identify potential site issues.
Build positive backlinks from trusted sites into your own.
In essence, backlinks are online word-of-mouth recommendations. Search engines view them as votes of confidence, signalling content value and suggesting that your site may deserve higher search rankings. When considering where to promote your business (in terms of the sites you want to advertise it on), it’s also essential to consider that site's relevance, authority, and trustworthiness. Tools like Moz’s free Domain Authority checker tool can highlight whether another website has a positive reputation that could benefit your website!
Both high-quality and numerous backlinks influence search engine algorithms. High-quality backlinks from reputable sources hold significant weight, while numerous links from low-quality sites may be detrimental and negatively impact your visibility in the Search Engine Results Pages.
Imagine a scale: golden coins (high-quality backlinks) on one side, iron coins (numerous low-quality backlinks) on the other. There may be fewer golden coins, but their worth is unmistakably greater. The pursuit of backlinks is strategic, emphasising relevance, authority, and trust over volume.
In today's SEO landscape, quality trumps quantity. Ethical strategies like guest blogging and creating shareable content foster organic relationships, enhancing a website's profile and search engine ranking.
Be aware of Social Signals.
Social signals—likes, shares, comments—indicate content quality and relevance, potentially influencing search rankings. Picture a bustling marketplace; a webpage with solid social signals is like a stall drawing a crowd. Search engines notice this buzz, rewarding it with a prime spot in the search engine results pages.
Search engines may not admit a direct impact between social signals and search engine results placements, but there does appear to be a relationship between the two.
Consider the impact of your social media presence on website visibility. Social engagement—a tweet, a like, or a share—creates a rhythm that leads search engines to your content's door.
And finally… be aware of potential changes to Search Engine Algorithms.
Algorithm volatility, driven by search engines refining criteria, constantly challenges SEO strategies. Updates aim to enhance user experience but often leave businesses scrambling, risking a drop in rankings and, consequently, organic traffic.
Consider a family-owned bakery thriving online until an algorithm update prioritises more prominent brands, causing an overnight drop in visibility. The stakes are high; algorithm changes can disrupt growth and necessitate navigating uncertainty, so it’s essential to be aware of the potential changes and continuously monitor and refine your SEO activities to ensure they are as effective as possible. As I mentioned earlier, SEO isn’t a one-step process; it’s a continuous, long-term process that will change as customer needs and search engine algorithms change and develop.
>>>An added extra – a Digital Marketing glossary to help with some jargon and allow you to decode those acronyms!
AR (Augmented Reality) – is a technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on the user’s view of the real world.
B2B (Business to Business) – is a communication/relationship between two different businesses.
B2C (Business to Customer) – is a communication/relationship between a customer and a business.
BR (Bounce Rate) is the percentage of people who land on your web page and return within 3 seconds.
CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart) is a method for checking whether the user is a person or a robot.
CMS (Content Management System) is a web application designed to make creating, editing, and managing a website accessible for non-technical users.
CPA (Cost Per Action) is a model in which an advertiser pays only for the action someone takes, such as a click, impression, or sale.
CPC (Cost Per Click) - The amount spent to get an ad clicked when running PPC campaigns.
CPL (Cost Per Lead) - The amount it costs for your organisation to acquire a lead.
CR (Conversion Rate) - CR is a sales acronym for the people who completed the desired action on a web page, such as purchasing or filling in a form.
CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation) – is the process of optimising your website (i.e. by enhancing the design of your website) to increase conversion rates.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) - is your business's relationship with the customers. CRM systems hold data about your customers and can be linked with email marketing platforms.
CTA (Call to Action) - A call to action refers to a specific action that a webpage, email, or social media post encourages users to take, including signing up for more information, completing a subscription form, making a purchase, liking a social media post or business page, or following someone on social media..
CTR (Click Through Rate) – A percentage calculated by comparing the number of clicks on a call to action with the total number of people that could have clicked on it (i.e. the number of people who saw the advert or call to action).
CX (Customer Experience) - The customer’s experience with the organisation.
KPI (Key performance indicator) - This is one (or many) metrics you need to monitor to determine the success of your marketing activities.
LTV (Life Time Value) – The average value of a customer for their entire life cycle with you.
PPC (Pay Per Click) - Advertising via Google/Bing Ads, etc., where potential customers click on an advert, and you are charged for that action.
ROI (Return on Investment) / ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment) – A calculation that determines how much money you have made as a direct result of a marketing activity compared to the cost of implementing that marketing activity.
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) - The optimisation of your website to get ranked more highly in the search engine result pages.
SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) - These are the pages the search engine shows when a user searches for some keywords.
SMM (Social Media Marketing) – this is the use of social media platforms to promote a product or service.
UI (User Interface) – This is how a website or app interacts with a user. A good user interface provides a user-friendly experience, allowing users to interact quickly and effectively with the website/app.
URL (Uniform Resource Locator): URL is the web address of a website, i.e. www.mywebsite.co.uk
UX (User Experience) – This is a customer's overall experience with your business (or website, etc.)
VR (Virtual Reality) – a computer-generated simulation or a 3D image or environment that a user can interact with
If you need help with your SEO or broader Digital Marketing, from comprehensive keyword research to SEO and paid advertising, get in touch – we’d love to speak to you about how we could help your business! Call today on
01296 326646 or 07929 030475 or visit our website: https://digitalmarketinggroundworks.com
[2] https://www.statista.com/topics/8904/mobile-internet-usage-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/#topicOverview