So you have a brand new website – now what’s next? Well you’ll want people to be able to find you and this is why you need to focus on your SEO. In our SEO guide we’ll go through some of the SEO basics.
What is SEO
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, meaning that you are optimising your site, so that search machines like Google and Bing will rank you better in their search results – ensuring that your site is the one that people click on, instead of the others out there.
Search engines uses an algorithm to determine how they should rank your site – we won’t go in to the details of how that specifically works, we will however go through some pointers for you to consider when creating the content for your site.
How to use keywords
You might have heard of keyword stuffing, and how Google will penalise sites which they suspect of doing so. This doesn’t mean however that you should not focus on keywords at all. Keywords are important. Keywords tells the search engines that the content of your site matches what people are searching for, but remember that you are writing for people, not search engines – so do your keyword research, write your text bearing your keywords in mind, and then go through your text. Is it easy to read and to understand? Do the keywords disrupt the flow?
Another important aspect is to ensure that you use your keywords early on in your text. Think of it as a newspaper article – you need the readers to quickly understand what the article is about. The same goes for search engines. It is also considered to be good practice to use your keywords in sub-headings, but only if it makes sense of course.
Updating your content
This is another important aspect of SEO. Google rewards sites that continuously create new and good quality content. A blog is often the best way to do so. But remember to keep it relevant. If you sell shoes, focus your blog on content which seems relevant to your potential customers. If you are a consultant, write about the work you do and what’s new in your particular industry.
The importance of links
Search engines like pages with authority. You know you have authority when other people look to you for advice. Online that means links. The more people who are linking to your site the better. However, this needs to be qualified links – don’t waste your money on people who offer to link to your site for a fee, often the search engines will find you out, and penalise the both of you.
The best way to build authority is to create good content, that others will link to, and then make yourself known to others in your niche. Offering to guest-blog on other authority sites can be a good way to get your name out there. However, this can of course be a full-time job on it’s own. But what ever time you can carve out to start building those online relationships will probably prove to be well worth your time.
A final note on links is to remember that the love goes both ways. If you find good relevant content out there in cyberspace, link to it in a blog-post, and remember to place the link around the beginning of your text.
Plugins
We usually install the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin on our clients sites, as it works really well as a guide to understand whether or not you are doing a good job of optimizing your sites for SEO.
But however good the plugin is, it is not fairy dust. Doing a good job of your SEO takes work – keep coming back to it. You can use the Google Webmaster Tool to understand which search terms are leading people to your page and use Google Analytics to understand how people are moving through your site.
We hope you’ve found this short guide helpful. If you want to learn more about SEO we’ve listed a few really helpful resources below.
Brilliant resources on SEO: