The Business Owner’s Guide to SEO
You know you need it. but where to get started?
Improving website SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is an ongoing task often put on the back burner or overlooked in the excitement of a website launch. But it is essential to consider SEO the foundation of your site not only when launching but as an ongoing element in your site that you will need to maintain.
What exactly does SEO do? In short it is a combination of strategies, tactics and techniques to improve your site’s visibility on search results pages (Google, Bing, Safari etc) and attract relevant visitors to your website.
You may wish to work on your SEO yourself, or prefer to outsource to an agency or freelance specialist. Which ever you choose, having an understanding of the factors that influence SEO will help you better manage your website, develop an awareness of search trends, help you better design campaigns and website content for your ideal audience, and help you make a better informed decision about when and to outsource your SEO.
We always include foundational SEO in our client website projects to give them good foundations and improve visibility with search engines. In this article and the downloadable Foundational SEO checklist, we’ve included factors we consider important to help sites index (be read by) with search engines, move up the search results pages, and ultimately attract relevant traffic to the site. There is a lot more to SEO than this, but the foundational checklist will help you understand some of the fundamental principles that create and deliver great content and user experience.
Don’t forget to download our FREE Business Owner’s SEO PDF to help you get started on your SEO journey.
The checklist. Let’s begin…
BUT First of all, what is SEO?
SEO means ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ and refers to the tactics and techniques employed to improve the positioning of your website in Organic (unpaid) search results pages. Ranking high on search results pages increases visibility and in turn drives relevant visitors (traffic) to your website. SEO is a very important part of any businesses website traffic strategy.
Search Engine Optimisation uses a combination of technical and non-technical techniques that help your site rank higher on search engine results pages. What is a search engine? Examples are Google, Bing or Safari (or the like). You type in your question, or a series of search words and the search engine then lists relevant websites. A well-designed website with good SEO strategy, optimised site performance and relevant content will be noticed and indexed by search engines, signalling your site is worth sending traffic to.
Strategically designing your website content and SEO, if well done, will attract your ideal audience. When visitors engage with your content, linger on site, and buy from your business, search engines algorithms learn that your site is worth sending further traffic to. Steer clear of an immediate urge to attract as many visitors as possible – for the sake of vanity metrics- attracting visitors to irrelevant content will cause them to “bounce off” your site (leave immediately), signalling to algorithms your site is not serving its purpose to answer the search query. Instead, aim to attract relevant and qualified site visitors with genuine queries that relate to your content and offering.
SEO is a medium-term (not short-term) strategy and a specialised field that combines multiple techniques. SEO changes take time to impact the search rankings. Results won’t be immediate like doing a paid google ad (sometimes referred to as PPC, or pay per click). For more complex and technical SEO tactics it can be well worth the investment to have an expert SEO partner on board for your business. In the meantime, here are some tips and tricks to help you understand what can influence SEO from a brand and/or website owner’s perspective, and how you can optimise images and on-page elements on your site.
We focus on three main areas of SEO: Image SEO, On Page SEO, and Link Strategy and benchmark key search terms and performance metrics we want to rank on.
1 | IMAGE SEO
Optimising images for web and user experience is vital for SEO. When preparing web images, balance image file size (as small as possible) with image quality (clear, crisp images). Images may need to be compressed so they load quickly on all devices (desktop, tablet and mobile). Add relevant metadata, image names and alt tags to optimise visibility in search. As a brand or website owner, optimising your images for web for all devices (desktop, tablet, and mobile) is key.
Focus On:
- Web image format (JPEG, GIF, PNG) & Compression
- Image Names
- Alt Tags for Images
- Images Related to Text and Content
- Device Optimisation
2 | ON PAGE SEO
On-page content, copy and page structure should be optimised. A well thought-out page with headers and sub-headers will improve user experience and make content easier to read. Remember, good user experience is always great for SEO! Keeping your site users engaged with relevant content, and well-structured pages will make your site easier to consume and navigate and lead to longer visit duration and lower bounce rates (both good signals for search engines!).
Focus on:
- Page Name & Page Meta Descriptions
- Keyword Research
- Titles & Body Copy
- Page Structure & Heirarchy
- Link Strategy
3 | LINK STRATEGY
Where relevant, include external links to high quality, credible sites and sources on your pages (without distracting from your content). Also include internal links to other pages on your website. Set all links to open on a new page.
A good link strategy will also include developing external relationships that facilitate backlinks from reputable sites in your niche. This will further enhance the credibility and authority of your site with users and search engines.
There are different types of links: internal, external, and backlinks. It can be worth engaging an SEO expert to help you with this.
4 | BENCHMARKING & SITE PERFORMANCE METRICS
Your site performance indicates whether your site is doing a good job serving visitors. Keeping an eye on site performance metrics helps you adjust and refine your SEO tactics and strategies based on user behaviour. Google Analytics and Google Search Console are free to use but require set up. They are also great places to do keyword research to see which search terms are trending and driving traffic to your site. Benchmarking search results and site performance metrics before doing your SEO work will be important to see how your site is tracking and whether users are enjoying the website experience.
It’s important to benchmark your work to see how the SEO is impacting your search results. But give the site time to be indexed by search engines and for the SEO work to take effect. It can take months for SEO tactics to impact the search results pages.
To Benchmark Current SERP rankings, Record Baseline Performance Statistics:
- Bounce Rates
- Time on Site
- Site Speed
- Content Relevance
- Popular Content & Search Queries
5 | DOWNLOAD OUR FREE SEO CHECKLIST
We’ve prepared a FREE downloadable checklist with some of our favourite foundational SEO techniques to help you start. The guide explains some of the most effective tactics you can use to improve your SEO, and better understand some of the factors that will enhance your site in search rankings.
Even if you are choosing to use a specialist SEO Agency or Freelancer to implement technical and advanced SEO, this checklist will show how you can also contribute to good website SEO as a business, brand or website owner.
6 | SEO TOOLS
We have covered just a few SEO techniques above; there is way more to learn about this ever-evolving specialist marketing tool. Want to read more or do some further research? We recommend you set up a few of the following tools and explore the links below to help you get started on your SEO journey.
- SET UP SITE ANALYTICS: Google Analytics
- DO KEYWORD & TRENDS RESEARCH: Google Search Console & Google Adwords Keyword Planner (free, but you will need to set it up if you don’t have it)
- READ MORE AT SEO AUTHORITY SITES: Moz, SEMRush
- INSTALL A WORDPRESS SEO PLUG INS: Yoast SEO