Search engine optimisation also known as SEO could be a book in itself, and there are many, big, confusing books out there on the subject (and a few good ones as well!). I’ll explain to you what SEO actually is in a straightforward way, what you need to be doing to ensure your website is optimised and the benefits of doing so. After reading this chapter and when you get started on optimising your website you’ll realise it’s nowhere near as daunting or complicated as you may think it is now.
SEO is important for every business, here’s just a few reasons why:
- “93% of online experiences begin with a search engine”. (SearchEngineJournal.com)
- “60% of all organic clicks go to the organic top 3 search results”. (Business2Community)
- “44% of online shoppers begin by using a search engine”. (Interconnected World: Shopping and Personal Finance, 2012)
These statistics show us that a huge proportion of those looking for something online don’t have a specific business in mind and are using a search engine to help them find what they’re looking for. Further to this the statistics show that a significant amount of traffic will go to the top three organic (not paid for) websites listed by the search engine. If you can spend the time to get your website to reach a high position on search engine results you will reap the rewards.
Before we start, remember these two points:
- SEO isn’t rocket science.
- The job of a search engine is simply to match an individual’s search with quality content that answers their question or finds what they’re looking for.
Website Content
If you want your website to perform well on search engines then you need to have good quality, unique content on your site. Competition to be on page #1 of search engine results is incredibly fierce and is becoming increasingly more competitive as the number of websites online continues to grow. By creating unique, useful content (for more information on this see CHAPTER XX ON BLOGGING) your website can be seen by search engines as a resource which helps those online find answers to questions and or provide them with the information they need. This can result in a high ranking.
As mentioned in CHAPTER XX unique content is really important. Search engines will penalise you if your website contains identical content to another site, so make sure you haven’t got anything direct from another online source.
Duplicate content can often happen with online retailers who take the product description directly from their wholesalers website. This is very understandable and justifiable but it can have terrible effects on a websites search engine ranking.
Take the time to create your own unique content on every page of your website.
A general rule is that every page on a website should be 300 words in length as the absolute minimum. Anything less than this and it will perform poorly on search engines and it will be less likely to have a number of quality keywords. We’ll discuss keywords shortly. I personally recommend pages to have a minimum of 450 words of unique content on every page; the more quality content you have on your website, the more likely it is that search engines will find it.
Consistently creating new, unique content is important. If you don’t update your website then it’ll suffer. Search engines love fresh content, if you aren’t creating new content or updating your website in some way it’ll start falling down the search engine rankings whilst websites that are updated will take your place. This is where a blog can come in extremely useful, in my opinion it’s the easiest, most effective way to keep your site updated with fresh, relevant content. See CHAPTER XX on blogging.
Keywords
Within your website you should have keywords. If you have never heard of this phrase before or aren’t quite sure what it means, don’t worry, it’s very simple. Your keywords should reflect your business and what you do, for example a solicitor would have keywords such as:
- Solicitor
- Law
- Legal
- Advice
Your chosen keywords would then be used throughout your website. It is very important to use keywords organically, this means using them for a reason; so you can’t write nonsense sentences such as:
‘If you’re looking for a solicitor, we’re a firm of solicitors, so if you’re looking for a solicitor get in touch and a solicitor will be happy to talk to you’
A few years ago website owners could get away with this and in many cases cramming a site full of keywords would get it listed very highly on search engine results, however times have changed. The major search engines identify poor quality content and your site will be penalised when identified. Being penalised by a search engine can have a catastrophic effect on the amount of visitors you receive. My advice is not to try and trick the major search engines, use SEO ethically and you will see results over time.
Identifying Your Keywords
To identify your keywords, think about your business and the products or services you offer. Think about what people will be typing into the search engine if they’re looking for your particular product or service.
How many keywords you choose for your site as a whole will depend on how big your website is (or is going to be). If you are a tradesman with a small website with about 3-4 pages then you may look at around five keywords for your website as a whole. If you run a large online retail store with 50+ pages you may look to have twenty or more keywords within your site. If you’re not sure what to do then I recommend you start small, pick five keywords and start from there. When you see results you can begin adding additional keywords.
When you have chosen your keywords they then need to be placed on every page of your website. Depending on the keywords you’ve chosen it may not be possible to get them all on a particular page(s) which is okay, but make sure you have at least one of your keywords listed on each page. This is very easy to do as your keyword should be a reflection of what your business does, so it may already be on most pages of your site without even realising it.
Taking keywords to a more advanced level, every page of your site should have its own unique keyword. As an example I’ll use the solicitors keywords as given above; on a page titled ‘personal injury’ within their website the owner would of course want the keywords of the site listed on there (solicitor, advice etc.) but the main keyword for this particular page should be ‘personal injury’ or a variation of that. Within the webpage’s written content the keyword ‘personal injury’ should be used consistently but not excessively. Think about all of the products/services you offer and decide what should be the main keyword for each of those pages.
Long Tail Keywords
I really like long tail keywords and have found them very effective for SEO. They’re more specific so you’ll get less traffic from them but you can come up considerably higher on search results than you would with a standard keyword. You can use a combination of keywords and long tail keywords within your site. The examples below will show the difference between keywords and long tail keywords. Sticking with the solicitors as the example:
Website keyword: solicitor
Specific page keyword: personal injury
Long tail keyword: Looking for a personal injury solicitor for a compensation claim
Website keywords and page specific keywords are highly competitive. You may struggle to place highly on search engine results for these; this is where the use of the long tail keyword comes in useful. Most search engine users would type in ‘personal injury’ or ‘personal injury solicitor’ if that is what they’re looking for. However, a smaller percentage may enter ‘Looking for a personal injury solicitor for a compensation claim’ or another variation of this e.g. ‘I’m looking for a personal injury solicitor to make a compensation claim’. Although there will be fewer people searching for the long tail keyword it’ll still happen and your website would place much higher for these results when using it as opposed to a standard keyword.
Think about how your page specific keyword could be altered to become a long tail keyword. I like to use a long tail keyword on every page of a website if possible.
Geographic Keywords:
How you use geographic keywords will depend on your business but they can be extremely powerful when used correctly. If you run a business that serves customers in a local area (e.g. hairdressers, gym, retail store etc.) then using that specific location as a keyword can be very effective. The most traffic will come from using the name of the town or city as the keyword, e.g. Manchester but as with keywords and long tail keywords the geographic angle can also be made more precise for better results e.g. Fallowfield, Manchester.
As with long tail keyword terms there will be fewer searches for this but your site is far more likely to rank highly for this. Examples:
Keyword: Salon
Geographic Keyword: Manchester Salon
Precise Geographic Keyword: Salon in Fallowfield, Manchester
Many site owners try to cram as many geographic locations on the bottom of website pages, I don’t advise this as firstly, it doesn’t look professional and secondly the search engines will clamp down on it and penalise you at some point.
Don’t worry if your business offers a nationwide or international service, you can still use geographic tailoring to give you an advantage for some terms. If you were based in Oxford it can be used throughout the site e.g. ‘We offer a nationwide/international service from our offices in Oxford’ or tailored further to ‘Adwell, Oxford’. This can be successful as a lot of people like to buy from local businesses.
Getting Your Websites Pages SEO Ready
After covering keywords I’m now going to look at the main areas that should be optimised on every page of a website and how it can be done.
Website Title
This is an important feature that you need to get right. The title of your website basically tells the search engine what your website is about. You only have between 60 – 70 characters to do it in, so it needs to be short, to the point and contain your main keywords that you want to be found for.
Keyword cramming on titles isn’t an effective strategy. Search engines can now identify whether a title makes sense or if it is just crammed with keywords. A title such as:
‘Salon | Manchester | Fallowfield | Stylist | Hair’
Wouldn’t be as effective as:
Manchester Salon offering Hair Styling in Fallowfield
Web Page Titles
If you’re using WordPress I can’t recommend highly enough the ‘plugin’ called SEO By Yoast. Install it (a YouTube search will show you how to do this) for free and in less than two minutes. Using this ‘plugin’ will allow you to optimising your websites pages in a simple, straightforward way. Throughout this book we focus on WordPress, there are other SEO plugins and software available for non WordPress sites but there is just too many to cover. Using a search engine will help you find the SEO software for your particular website if you’re not using WordPress. Make sure you take the time to read independent reviews so that you know the software is good before you install it.
Every page on your website needs optimising, so the first thing you need to do is give each page a title. The logic is the same as the site title above. Again you only have 70 characters available to you so you need to make sure that as much search engine friendly content as possible gets in there.
On every page look at the content that is in there, think about the keyword(s) that are assigned to the page and aim to include as much as possible into the page title. An example for the solicitors personal injury web page title might be something like:
‘Personal Injury Solicitors in Manchester offering Legal Advice’
When using WordPress this is very easy to do when you have installed SEO By Yoast. Sign into your admin area, find the page you wish to update and then scroll to the bottom were you’ll will see SEO By Yoast Plugin. It’ll say ‘SEO Title’ in this field enter the title for this particular page.
Header Tags
They are simply a way of giving your webpages structure with a heading and following subheadings, just as this chapter uses subheadings. There is debate as to the effectiveness of header tags in modern day SEO practices, I still like to use them.
The main Header Tag is called H1 and it then goes H2, H3, H4, H5, H6. The main header of the page would be highlighted and turned into a H1 tag and further sections of content would be made into H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6. You do not need to use all of the six header tags, it will depend on how much content you have.
Looking at the personal injury webpage again for a solicitors as an example, the breakdown of header tags might look something like this:
H1 – Personal Injury Advice
H2 – How We Can Help You
H3 – Our Experience
H4 – Testimonials
After each of the header tags content would be created relating to the header. Using header tags can make pages simpler to navigate for both users and search engines. Using header tags won’t have a negative impact on your website and many, myself included, believe it has have a positive effect on SEO.
Whether you decide to use header tags or not make sure your website is consistent, have every page set out with H tags or none.
Meta Description
A meta description is a small description of what that particular webpage is about. A meta description should be given to every webpage. When you use a search engine to find websites the 2 to 3 lines of content underneath the website link is the meta description.
When writing the meta description it’s a balancing act between priming it for search engine optimisation and making the page enticing for viewers to want to click on the site to find out more. If you stuff the meta description full of keywords or create content that doesn’t make sense or read well then it’ll look strange and possibly like nonsense to actual people who read it.
Creating good meta descriptions can be a challenge so don’t rush them. Think about each particular page, what it is you’re offering and or writing about, give a snippet of information to entice the reader to click whilst also trying to include a relevant keyword, long tail keyword and or geographic keyword.
Again if you are using SEO By Yoast on WordPress it’s very straightforward to enter a meta description, as with the page titles scroll to the bottom of the page in the admin area until you reach the SEO By Yoast section and enter the content where it says ‘meta description’.
I’m not on commission from SEO By Yoast! It is just a fantastic, free tool that I use on a number of websites and have found to be invaluable. Possibly my favourite tool from the plugin is the analysis; when you have entered the Page Title, Keyword and Meta Description you can click ‘Check’ and you will receive a traffic like system SEO grade of that particular page from Poor to Good. They even go a step further, if your page has received a score of ‘poor’ you can click ‘page analysis’ and it’ll tell you exactly why the page has been given that score and provide you steps to complete to get it up to a ‘good’ page for SEO…all for free!
Image Alt Tags
Images with alternative text specified, or Alt Tags simply means giving an image on your website a name to make it easier for the search engine to identify what the image is. People visiting a website won’t see what is included in the Alt Text unless they hover their mouse over the image.
When uploading an image onto your website you will see an option to add Alternative Text or Alt Text. Adding Alt Tags will make your website perform better on search engines, particularly if you have a large number of images on your website.
An image on your website may quickly get across a particular product or service to a person looking at it but without Alt Text search engines will not be able to identify what the image is or what it represents. For this reason you should create content that fulfils the same function as the image within your Alt Text, whether this is explaining what you do or what the image contains for example.
Go through your website and make sure that each image has its own Alt Tag description. Alt Tags should not be crammed with keywords, instead they should explain the image within a few words, if you can include a keyword then do so but don’t make it your goal.
Sitemap
Search engines want website owners to create sites that have great content which can be easily accessed. A sitemap can be thought of as a tool which tells the search engine how to find information on your site and quickly evaluate the websites content. Without a sitemap installed on your website, search engines may miss key information that is held on your website which can result in a far lower search engine ranking.
Thankfully for WordPress users there are a number of very simple plugin tools which allows you to create your own sitemap in just a few clicks. Personally I use XML Sitemap & Google News feeds which is a WordPress plugin. It is very straightforward and requires no technical knowledge, just follow the steps after installation.
If you are using a content management system other than WordPress there are dozens of step by step instructional videos available on YouTube which will show you how to create a sitemap on your website.
Backlinks
Backlinks are important and something that you should consistently work on. Put simply it is another website having a link that visitors can click which will take them to your website. Search engines view backlinks as giving a website credibility. If dozens to hundreds of good quality websites are happy to put your website as a link on their site then it’s seen as you must be doing something right. Creating backlinks through guest post blogging is covered in CHAPTER XX Blogging
Before we go any further a word of warning. Creating poor quality backlinks can have the opposite effect and get your website ranking significantly downgraded. Make sure you visit websites before you have a link to your website placed on them. Paying for backlinks can also prove catastrophic as a number of companies are creating backlinks to very poor sites you will see offers such as “300 backlinks for £xxx”. Either create backlinks yourself or do your homework if you’re going to pay someone to do it for you.
Gaining backlinks is time consuming, there’s no two ways about it. You need to find websites that are in the same sector as you or linked in some other way, contact the site owner and ask for a link. They will normally want something in return whether it is a mutual link back to their site, a payment or some content for their website (guest post blogging).
I’d advise when you start building your backlinks speak to people you already know who have websites, whether it’s for their own business or some other reason. You will be surprised how many people you have a connection with who will have some sort of online presence. If you know someone it is very easy to ask for a backlink so this is a good way to get started.
Gaining backlinks from strangers can be a challenge. It is made considerably harder if your website isn’t very good. Make sure your site has some interesting content and or is useful in some way so that high quality websites won’t be averse to linking to you. Decide what it is you’re willing to offer website owners whether it is a mutual link exchange, a guest post blog for their website, money or something else. Then start making contact with websites. It really is a numbers game, many won’t even reply to you but don’t lose heart, keep putting your site out there, even if you only gain one new backlink a week over time it will grow and become substantial.
Internal Links
Search engines like to see internal links within a site, it can also be a real benefit for your visitors. In your blog if you mention a particular product or service make it a clickable link that takes the reader to that page of your website. Search engines will be pleased with this and you can direct visitors to exactly where you want them to go, whether that is a sign up page, to a particular product or a contact page.
Making content clickable is very easy, in WordPress highlight the content you would like to make clickable in the admin area then find the button that looks like a paperclip, hover over it and it will say ‘Insert/edit link’ click the button and a box will come up asking for the url (website page) you wish to link it to. Enter the page of the website you wish to link it to, then click ‘Add Link’ and then click ‘update’ and your internal link is ready.
External Links
Used less but something that many believe can have positive effects. Putting links on your site to other high quality sites. This can be done when you’re creating new content, such as a blog, provide your reader with a link to a website to find out more or the source of whatever it is you’re writing about.
As with backlinking, make sure you only link to websites that are high quality.
Permalinks
This is just what each page url looks like. A website selling mens t shirts wouldn’t want a permalink like this:
www.examplewebsite.com/pageid=101
This is the default permalink status. It is very weak for SEO and can make your website appear unprofessional. Ensure you update your permalink settings so that it gets the ‘post name’ meaning the page name, for example if the page name was ‘Mens T shirts’ it would look like this:
www.examplewebsite.com/menstshirts
To change the permalinks in WordPress login to the admin area, click ‘Settings’, then ‘Permalinks’ then change from ‘Default’ to ‘Post Name’.
This is a very simple job that takes less than a minute to do but you will see rewards from if you’re currently using the default option.
In summary SEO needs constant work but it can pay dividends, just appreciate that it will not yield overnight success. Work you do now on your site may not have impact for weeks, maybe months but there is no time like the present to get started.
If you keep your website consistently updated with fresh content and build links with other websites you’re on your way to having a strong SEO system in place. There is a great deal more to be learnt about SEO but if you’re a beginner this is a great start to give you a grounding in the subject and quite a lot to be working on to start the process of getting your website onto page #1.