Let’s talk website SEO
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the key to improving the visibility of your website in search engine results. This is often referred to as organic, natural or earned search traffic. In search engine results Google displays links to websites it considers relevant, secure and being of quality. Google establishes this belief of a site based on many factors including, although not limited to, how many people visit the website, whether it is a mobile responsive website and the internal sites SEO. Website SEO is one of the best ways to improve Google ranking but it can take a lot of work. Additionally it can be a long and continual process, rarely a once off fix. We offer some tips for best practice with website SEO.
Considerations before creating SEO for any website:
- Where is your business located
- Who is your target market
- What do you type directly into Google to find your business
- What would others type in to Google to find your business
- Consider what your business competitors rank for
Page 1 of Google
Most online user’s won’t go past the first page of Google search results. Additionally most users are likely to click on the first 4 or 5 listed websites. But getting to this spot is not always easy, and generally does not happen over night. This is why SEO is becoming such an increasingly valuable part of your website and business plan. Website SEO is not a once off setup, in most cases it needs to be an ongoing strategy maintained and developed over time.
Good vs Bad website SEO practice
Bad SEO can include creating invisible written content on your website page so that only Google can read it and not your audience. Additionally a common but bad SEO practice is keyword stuffing; this means excessively repeating your key terms in sentences enough that they are no longer humanly readable. Other bad SEO practices include, but are not limited to, duplicate content, poor quality blog posts and comments, or using too many ads. Any of these practices will negatively impact your Google rank.
Good website SEO can be done in a number of ways. The first and main focus should just be on creating a well made website. A website that depicts your business as best you can, that showcases the services you offer in a visually appealing manner. In doing so when a person lands on your website they will have a positive experience, navigating your site easily and finding exactly what they are looking for. From this point you will need to talk to whoever is in charge of your website and discuss what your SEO expectations are. If your website already exists it becomes a matter of assessing your current website to establish the best options. If your website is about to be updated or developed for the first time, we suggest talking about your expectations and SEO plan before beginning to building a website.
keep your audience engaged
Google will love your site if it knows visitors are heading to your page from their search queries. When a visitor then remains on your website, taking the time to explore various pages and looking further in to your site, Google registers this as your audience being engaged with your site. In other words, Google will view your website as being relevant, secure and of quality in relation to the key word searched.
Some suggestions for keeping your audience engaged:
- Have a visually appealing website
- Make the information easy to find
- Have easy to read text
- Don’t swamp your viewers with too much text. Keep it relevant and easy to digest
- Update content on a regular basis
- Add new images
7 best website SEO practices to follow in 2016
- Avoid annoying pop ups and ads that deter visitors from returning to your website
- Video content is fast becoming the new SEO trend
- Consider Social Media to boost your business and SEO
- Consider what keywords relate to your business
- Avoid template heavy websites, slow websites don’t rank well
- Mobile optimisation is a crucial part of your web design
- Keep your SEO local
Don’t have time for website SEO?
There are alternative ways to get traffic to your website without having any SEO in place. However these are in most cases paid methods of advertising. Paid searches are a great way to get your site onto the front page of Google without spending any time or money on SEO. Since there is such a high demand for websites to be on page 1, Google adds a value to these key terms, and will charge you more depending on the current SEO rank of your website or popularity for those key terms.
However, keep in mind Google can differentiate between organic and paid searches and it can determine the popularity for a certain key term. If your paid key terms aren’t set up correctly, you can be paying for unwanted traffic to your website, where they leave immediately because what they’re searching for isn’t reflected on your website.
At Circle Media we will identify with your business, assess your market competitors, and produce personalised SEO plans to suit your business.