SEO is an area shrouded in mystery to many business owners. Despite my experience in journalism and PR, for a long time I felt unqualified to write content for blogs and websites. I had this idea that SEO consultants or copywriters were geniuses working with code and secret formulas to get sites ranking on top spots of search engines.
Through research and training, I’ve certainly become more SEO savvy. If you’re creating content for a website or even if you have outsourced SEO for your site a basic understanding of the subject is valuable. Over two articles, learn the basics of SEO to ensure your content ranks in search engines and doesn’t get lost in the Internet wilderness.
What is SEO?
SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, refers to techniques that enable your website to rank higher in organic search results. There are numerous components to improving SEO of your site. Search engines, the main these days being Google, use programs called bots or crawlers to scan website pages to determine what they are about and their importance. I think of them as librarians cataloguing information.
The Online Co Managing Director James Parnwell said SEO consultants often work on upwards of 200 points when optimising a site. Fortunately, Parnwell categorises these different points into four different categories including:
- content strategy
- backlinks and anchor text
- technical SEO
- local SEO, Google My Business and reviews.
Content strategy
Length
According to Yoast, the leading SEO plugin for website creation tool WordPress, you should have a minimum of 300 words on a page to rank well in the search engines.
Regular 500 – 600 word blog posts plus the occasional longer post is a good aim. Ensure pages such as your home page or about page have that magic 300 word recommended by Yoast.
Keywords
Keywords define the topics which your content is about and are words or terms users enter in search engines. Your goal with SEO is to drive organic traffic to your site from the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). Keywords in your content will determine traffic to your site. Target the right keyword so your content is found by search engines and your target audience.
New and updated content
Search engines will reward you for original content and helping to answer the questions of searchers. Parnwell said you will also get in Google’s good books for using their products such as Google+ and YouTube.
Backlinks and anchor text
Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink. Blue underlined text is considered the web standard and most common.
One-way anchor text backlinks
I often interview and quote people for my online content. I include a link to their site however, don’t seek a link back from their site to ours. Their expertise is what I am after to make my content valuable.
Citing other sites is known as one-way anchor text backlinks and is highly valuable for the site mentioned. “If website owners think highly enough of your site to send traffic from theirs to yours then much like any recommendation it increases your credibility,” Parnwell said. “However, beware of black hat backlink tactics and only use legitimate credible strategies to get backlinks or you may find yourself penalised or even deindexed by search engines.”
Next month we’ll look at technical and local SEO.
Nadine McGrath, PR Guru and Media Trainer
