Why is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) vital to the success of your project?
For many types of businesses, search engine traffic remains one of the most highly converting and regular sources of traffic, even with the rise of other newer social platforms.
Search engine traffic is very action focused; people are “googling” to solve a problem or discover the answer. They’re generally in the mood for information or ready to make a purchase. If you can give them what they want—the answer or a relevant service—chances are much higher that they will turn into a customer.
What is SEO exactly?
Simply put, search engine optimisation is the process of:
tweaking your website content with the express purpose of helping search engines understand your website better
encouraging those search engines to use your website content to answer their users’ search queries.
It starts with choosing the best keywords
Knowing what keywords to optimise for is a vital part of search engine optimisation. The words and phrases you think of when searching might not be what your customers use. “Doctor” is different to “physician” and you’ll see differences in the volume of searches for each term. You’ll also notice geographical variations in search volume for phrases across regions and countries.
SEO keywords
Choosing SEO Keywords
Knowing what keywords to optimise for is a vital part of search engine optimisation.
One important thing to note upfront is that the words and phrases you think of when searching might not be what your customers use. For example “doctor” is different than “physician” and you’ll see differences in the volume of searches for each term. You’ll also notice geographical variations in search volume for phrases across regions and countries.
Brainstorm keywords
Think of all the SEO keywords that you can that might relate to your business or service. Ask your colleagues and clients/customers what they would type into the box.
Once you have a basic list, go through and think of all the variations you can for the keyword and the locations it might apply to. E.g:
Web Design
Web Design Nelson
Nelson Web Design
Website Design
Nelson Website Design
Website Design Nelson
Web Designer
Web Designers
Refining your keyword list and adding in some data
Once you have a good list of keywords you can gather data about how often those terms might be searched and also any related keywords that you might not have thought about.
A good keyword search tool is essential to give you more information about the relative search volumes for particular terms, related keyword searches and the level of competition you face from other websites.
We love KW Finder. They have a good free offering that is easy to use and provides accurate results in our experience. By using a tool like KW Finder you can take some of the guess work out of the process. KW Finder will also let you export keyword lists to excel for further prioritisation and commenting.
Also pay attention to the kinds of results that are turning up when you search. Are they informational (like wikipedia) or service based (like your local plumber)? Are they returning local or international search results? It will be harder to compete with large international websites like wikipedia and you might want to diversify your keyword strategy if many of your primary keywords face heavy competition.
Keyword research tip: when Googling a keyword have a look at the bottom of the SERP’s at the “related searches”. Google is putting these here because it knows other people who searched for your keyword also used these related phrases. They can be good to add to your research list.
“Long Tail” Seo Keywords
Linking keywords to pages
Optimising content for SEO
Once you have all that content written then you need to work on it to make sure you’ve optimised it for the SEO keyword you are targeting. There are several key factors here:
Make sure you have a good SEO Title that includes the keyword phrase
Write a meta description that is a good summary of the content of the page and that also contains the keyword. Visitors first introduction to your website is via the search results. Before they’ve even seen your brand, your beautiful website, your lovely images. Craft the SEO title and meta description with care as this is the real introduction to your website.
Include the keyword phrase in a heading or two.
Include it in the main copy.
Avoid “Keyword stuffing”, repeating the keyword too many times. Under 0.4% is low and over 3%ish is starting to be considered stuffing.
Make sure you have alt tags set on your images, if possible with the keyword or related phrases in them.
If you use WordPress then installing an SEO tool like Yoast SEO can give you valuable feedback on all these metrics.
Helpful SEO resources
SEO information - MOZ - Beginners guide to SEO
SEO tools - KWfinder
SEO terms & definitions
SEM = Search Engine Marketing
SEO = Search Engine optimisation
SERP = Search engine results page. The list of results that are displayed when you search for something.
Keyword(s) = The words you type in the search engine to look for things
Search Phrase = Same as keyword
Backlinks = Links from other websites back to your site. Search engines use these as a signal that your site has valuable information on it.
Content Silos = A way of organising pages in a parent/child relationship that makes it easier for the search engines to find related content on your website
On Page optimisation = Optimisation tweaks to the content and code on your website pages
Off Page optimisation = Optimisation of content and links not on your own website