SEO is a long term strategy that aims to improve your ranking on search engine results, such as Google.
This is a great marketing strategy because it helps you connect with people who are actively looking for your product or service.
This means more HOT LEADS which leads to MORE SALES!
We have broken down each section into easily actionable tips that you can do yourself!
If you come across anything that you can’t work out, or if it’s all a little bit overwhelming but you know you need to get some results feel free to reach out to the team at Yakk! We are happy to help or even explain what SEO is even more!
Let’s get started.
1. Perform Keyword Research.
Keyword research is vital so you can understand what the most searched words and phrases are in your industry. This way you can target your content to be in line with these popular keywords.
Do some research on what people are searching for in search engines. There are great tools out there that can quickly give you this information.
- Semrush magic keyword tool
- Google ads keyword research tool.
- Answer the public.
List all of the keywords that you find and be sure not to just look for keywords that have a lot of search volume, as these are often highly competitive.
Be creative and think of specific searches your perfect customer may be searching.
Keep this list handy as we will use these keywords in the following tips.
2. Update your Title, Meta Description and Heading 1.
Optimising your website for search engines can be a confusing process but fear not! We have prioritised the most important components for you.
This is just scratching the surface of SEO optimisation, and your competitors could potentially be 10 steps ahead, but this can get some good runs on the board for you right now!
We are going to look at how to update these 3 components and what best practices you should be using to get the best results.
If you are using a popular web builder such as Wix, SquareSpace or even WordPress there are ways that you can change these components without knowing any code!
For example, you could use the free tool YOAST to help with this!
Now that keyword list we made before…
Grab it out as we will use them here.!
Title tag
A title tag is a piece of code that lets Google know what that page is about. This is what is populated into the title on Google search results and at the top of the tab in your browser.
When creating your title tags you should follow these criteria
- Make sure your title tags are different on every page. Think about what that page is about, and match it with a keyword you have found in your research.
- Your title should not be shorter than 60 Characters, or they will get cut off.
- Use this structure where possible…
“Primary Keyword” | “secondary keyword” | “location” | “brand name”
Meta Description
A Meta Description is a description of that page. This is what populates the google search results so we want to make sure that we put our best foot forward to encourage the ‘searcher’ to click our link over a competitor.
When creating your Meta Descriptions you should follow these criteria.
- Make sure your meta descriptions are different for every page.
- Ensure the description is relevant to the content on your page and engaging! Feel free to add a call to action or a phone number.
- Ensure you use the target keyword that you highlighted in your title tag.
- Be sure your description is under 180 characters or it may be cut off in the search results.
Heading 1’s
A heading 1 is the visible heading on your page, also referenced as “H1”. To edit this component you will need to go into the page builder interface of your website.
When creating your H1 you should follow these criteria.
- Make sure you have only 1 per page, otherwise google can get confused as to exactly what your page is about.
- Utilise the keywords that you have gathered in your research.
- Keep this keyword different to the one you have used in your title tag, but keep it relevant to the content on the page.
- Keep the length of this title between 20 and 70 Characters.
3. Linking Structure
It is vital when you’re building your site that you maintain a good structure, this helps emphasise what your primary focus is.
You never want to have a linking structure deeper than 3 clicks, This means that a user can get to any page on your site with no more than 3 clicks.
Anything passing this depth will not rank and will not count toward your SEO performance and in some cases, may even hurt you negatively.
Look at implementing drop-down menus, or links to other pages in your website from the homepage to improve this.
4. User experience
Analyse your site’s design. Ask yourself,
How is the experience?
Are people able to find what they are looking for as quickly as possible?
Do you get the message that you are trying to send across?
How is the conversion experience?
Are your form submissions detailed and easy to use?
Is the checkout process easy to complete?
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and try to imagine what information they are looking for and where they would look to get that information.
Analyse all these things and ensure they are at a good standard. You may be winning when it comes to SEO performance, but if your site is set up to fail from a user experience point of view, then it’s just wasted traffic.
This in turn may lead to less traffic as google will see people don’t spend much time on your site…
5. Analyse your sites Speed Score
Speed is a significant factor when ranking for search engines. Not only does it help with your rankings but it also improves the user experience on the site. This will see your bounce rates come down and visitors will spend more time on your site and they are more likely to become a customer.
Input your URL in this free tool, https://gtmetrix.com/,and see what your results are.
The average load time you want to aim for is below 4.0 seconds.
Use the results of this report to see if there is anything you can repair yourself. Keep an eye out for large images that you can reformat using tools like https://tinyjpg.com/ and replace the large images on your website.
If your running a WordPress site, a great FREE plugin to use to optimise your site’s performance is https://wordpress.org/plugins/autoptimize/
6. Analyse the health of your site
Just like yourself, your website can become unhealthy if it is not maintained regularly. Various issues can arise that can affect Google’s ability to read your site and your user’s experience.
It’s important to audit your site regularly and see what is potentially causing issues that are stopping you from achieving the rankings you are aiming for.
A great FREE tool to use to audit your site is https://seositecheckup.com/.
You should be aiming to have your site health at 95% or higher. This tool can make suggestions on some things that you can do yourself to improve your site health.
7. Analyse your content
“It’s not about passing the test. It’s about having the most relevant content out there”
Your content is going to be the underlying factor of how you perform in the long run of your rankings, do some competitor research, see what is going on out there and see who is performing the best.
What are they doing differently? What can you change about your content to match that? And what can you bring that is going to set you apart from your competition?
Consider putting a content plan together. Google loves activity so be active with your site. You can start a healthy blog panel with relevant information that people are searching for or advertise promotions that you are running on your site or in-store.
Overall make sure your content is the most relevant out there!
8. Add schema and Open Graph Mark-up to your pages
This one can be a little more complex to implement, but there are tools you can use to create these codes, which can then be put onto each page of your site in the head part of your code.
These are pieces of code that provide more information about your website. They improve your compatibility with other touchpoints including socials and ranking in the maps section of google.
You can add schema for every type of page, from an FAQ to an Article page.
This improves the sharing compatibility of your site, so when someone shares a page of your site, a custom snippet appears giving details about that specific page.
Some great FREE tools to set these kinds of things up can be found here
https://smallseotools.com/open-graph-generator/
https://technicalseo.com/tools/schema-markup-generator/
Hopefully you find this information helpful and can take action on improving your search engine results right away!
We’re currently offering a free 30-min consultation (Usually valued at $1000!), so if you want to have a yarn and chat about all things SEO (or whatever you want to chat about) you can book a free session here.
PS. We only allocate a small number of these free sessions a month, so book in quick before we have to start charging for them again! Jump on and book one now by clicking here.
All the best,
The Team @ Yakk
Digital Marketing, Done Differently. Better Even.
