For those not in the industry, SEO – Search Engine Optimisation – can be a complicated, necessary evil. But, it doesn’t have to be mythical or difficult to understand the basics.
In part two of the 30 tips for small businesses to follow I’ve compiled, here are the second ten:
- Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket
Don’t just do SEO on its own. A sudden or significant algorithm update, or a new competitor with deep pockets could have a big impact on your leads and sales. Invest in paid search – AdWords – and social-media advertising to spread the risk.
- If you hire an SEO agency, keep an eye on them
Agencies should keep close contact with you. Those that don’t, forcing you to chase them for reports and information should be let go of quickly. Equally as important, agencies using anything other than white-hat SEO techniques can inflict serious damage to your site, and your long term performance in Google. Stay close, and request complete visibility of the work they do for you.
- Be informed
The world of SEO changes rapidly and Google updates it algorithm often – tactics that worked last year are now out of date and can damage a campaign, so your approach to SEO must continually evolve.
Making it harder, Google doesn’t spell things out. They offer advice, but certainly won’t go into detail or offer special treatment.
It’s often the case that you won’t know you’ve done something wrong until it’s too late and received a penalty, noticing your online leads have dried up, or by logging into your Google Search Console to see a warning or penalty message. Staying informed as much as possible helps avoid this trouble.
- Create unique content
Content is what will help you rank for your target terms. This means content from your home page, product/service pages, FAQ etc. But, if your content isn’t unique, Google will pick up on that and rank you accordingly.
- Buzzword bingo
You want to target the terms/keywords your customers are searching for, but write your content for humans first, instead of search engines. Don’t go keyword crazy.
- Blog continuously and consistently
Don’t ride the rollercoaster, 5 blogs one month, none the next. Be consistent, committing to a set number of blog posts per month.
- Focus on desired actions
Get specialist input on how to alter the content and structure of each page to encourage visitors to perform a desired action such as downloading a report, subscribing to a newsletter, making an enquiry, buying something etc.
- Good URL structure
People should be able to understand the topic of a page by looking at the URL.
- Channel your inner blogger
Look for opportunities to be a guest blogger in your industry, on suitable sites. Create good quality, keyword rich content, with a link back to your website.
- Use internal linking
Link topics to create a theme, to help readers and search engines.
For example, if you sell car parts, and are talking about gearboxes on a page, as part of a larger discussion, link the word gearbox to the page where you speak more in depth about it, or sell products related to it.
Stay tuned for the final part of this series, that we’ll publish next month.
Nathan Sinnott, Chief Executive Officer, Newpath WEB
