What is SEO?
SEO or search engine optimisation, is about adding the right keywords to your website and search results, so that when someone searches online for the services or products that you offer, your website appears on page one of search engines.
According to data experts, only 0.63% of Google searchers click on results from the second page. This is why SEO (done when the website page is first created) is so important.
There are lots of factors to SEO, but in this article I focus mainly on on-page SEO and more importantly you can do most of them yourself.
SEO is part of web design, right?
Wrong! Sadly some web designers don’t offer it and some think you don’t need SEO. You do! So, if you already have a website, even if it’s just gone ‘live’, don’t assume that your website provider has applied SEO. It won’t happen automatically. If it’s appearing on page one, great! If not there’s work to do.
There are many things that can be done to optimise any website for SEO. Here we concentrate mostly on on-page SEO, in other words, page and post content and search engine results.
If your business relies on local traffic, for a specific town or region, SEO can be applied for that too.
Eight ways to apply SEO to your websites, free!
- Download the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress – it uses a traffic light system that makes it easy to see at a glance if your pages are optimised or not.
- Submit website to local directories such as – Yell and Cylex.
- Register and submit your website with Google Places for Business – always found on page one search results. Essential if your business relies on ‘local’.
- Submit an XML sitemap – for admission to Google (help Google ‘find’ and ‘crawl’ your website).
- Upload website to Google Search Console (as above).
- Optimise your images.
- Set up Google Analytics – it records data on who is clicking through to your website, where they come from, what pages they visit and how long they stay there.
- Submit website to searches.
If you get stuck or WordPress isn’t your speciality, let me help.
Final word
It can take time (sometimes weeks) for Google to ‘crawl’ your website. However, the quicker you apply SEO the better, then it’s ready to be ‘crawled’ and ranked. The more relevant your website keywords are to a potential search the more likely you will reach page one of search engines.
Other factors that will help your website be found online is linking back to it from, for example, social media posts, Linkedin and posting blog articles. Incoming links (links to your website from other highly ranked websites) also help your SEO.
If you are unable to do all the above, let me help! We will agree on a plan that suits your budget and timescale.
