SEO can be a scary, huge animal that you can either sink money into, get taken for a ride by money hungry firms, and never really know how well to track and manage your campaigns.
However, a lot can be said for the good old fashioned, “do it yourself” approach. We’d like to share with you the basics to getting your website found by customers, and a step by step guide to setting up your content or pages if you’re thinking about an entry level website that can pull its weight and be found by organic searchers.
Principles of SEO built sites:
- What you want to be found under in Google, you write about in your website
- Exact word matches are necessary
- Don’t fake it, be genuine
- provide information unique to your skills and services
- Be active and update regularly
- Ensure your customers know you’re credible
What you want to be found under in Google, you write about in your website
It seems obvious, but so many web users get it wrong. If you want you website to rock up on the first page of Google, then you need the same words people search for in Google to feature in your website. And lets be honest, if you are searching for a service, you will never choose a website ad that links you to a page – where that service or term you searched for never even appears! Google works like an honest business man, it only lets genuine website about specific topics get through. We’re not talking about paid ads, we’re talking about organic searches that rock up underneath the ads. Think about it from a research perspective, if you’re researching a topic, and scrolling through journals, you would be looking for 3 things:
- your topic to appear in the heading
- Your topic to feature in a short description of the article
- and the topic to be mentioned, explained, and detailed in the article.
This leads us into the next principle:
Exact word matches are necessary
In order for Google to index you according to your key search – the words users search for would obviously be best found in text, paragraphs, and headings of your website. If you want to be found as a ‘plumber in Ascot’, then your best bet for being found is to have those details being shown loud and clear on your website – not just mentioned or tacked on at the end of a service list.
The tricky part is – people are sensitive characters. Simply having a keyword like approach to web copy can turn people off – as the modern internet searcher can tell the difference between a professional looking website setup – to one that is just aimed at getting people to click on their website. What we need from a website – is to show as much detail, information, and credibility alongside your services and products as possible, so that viewers can verify that they are not being taken for a ride, leading us into the next principle; don’t fake it , be genuine.
This leads us into the next principle:
Don’t fake it, be genuine
If you’re online looking for a service provider, product, or information, what you want is a clear explanation, and honest opinion, and the service providers personality to come through. In the age of disconnection from people to each other over the web – we want to feel connected and be assured that we can relate and feel safe with the information and relationships we access online… So just be yourself!
Provide information unique to your skills, services and products
The best thing about being genuine, is that you get to speak about the things in your business practice that make you unique, special, competent, or growing in. The best way to deliver these, is allow a user to view your practices at a large scale, but also a detailed scale. Instead of simply presenting a standard service list and a ‘contact us’ at the end of it to find out more, create a web page that details examples, credibility, and how you work under that service or product. This approach of displaying a large amount of information with links to further detail and examples allows to user to verify you, understand your services, and determine whether you suit their needs. It also allows you to use the keywords and text matches that Google expects you to have so that you can be found.
Be active and update regularly
Nobody likes to see an empty news page or blog page on a website. This tells users that you don’t care about your online presence, and indicates that you’re not up to date with their requirements or needs. The best part about regular activity is that Google likes it – because people like it. You have to understand that google is on your side – they are trying to ‘farm out’ paid SEO campaigns, and provide web searchers with the results that they want. And what people want, is information.
This means you should post about yourself, post about your products, post about questions your clients have. Post about topics that relate to your services, all these posts show users that you care about your industry, that you’re knowledgeable, and that you’re credible.
We’ll post subsequent articles of how to structure your pages to actually achieve the results you want, but for now follow the instructions below to get yourself started:
- Decide on a topic
- Write a heading that includes the topic
- Write at least 300 words for that page
- Include images and reference them in your copy
- link any words in the page relevant to other pages in your site
- post it to your social media account
If you’re still lost, give us a call in the studio to chat about how you can get your SEO working the way it should be.