Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of enhancing your website’s content (both visible and hidden), with the aim of making your website appear higher up the results pages of search engines such as Google and Bing. Essentially, it helps customers find your website. Here are our top tips to help your business with SEO.
Think like your customers
How would they search to find you online? Try searching and see how you rank.
Update content regularly
Update your website with regular, relevant content, such as blogs or latest news. Search engines reward websites which receive regular content updates.
Incorporate keywords and phrases
Google and other search engines scan the content on your website to understand what your site is about and when to include it in search results. By including clear titles and headers as well as relevant keywords and phrases in your website content you will increase your chances of appearing higher up relevant searches for the product or services you offer.
How to choose keywords?
1) Write down 3-5 topics that are most important to your business. For example, if you offer guided jeep safari tours they could be “jeep tours”, “expert guides” and “wildlife”
2) Use these topics to create a list of 5-10 keywords and phrases within each topic. For example, within “jeep tours” they could be “4×4”, “offroad experience”, “scenic tours”, “rugged adventure”
3) Try and weave these keywords and phrases through the content across your site. Search engines pay extra attention to page titles and headers, so make sure to add these to every page.
Do not simply paste keywords across your site as this can be recognised and penalised by search engines. You must try and use them properly as part of relevant content on each page.
Google Trends is a great, free tool to test which of your keywords and phrases are used most in searches – these are the ones to focus on.
Add meta descriptions
Add a ‘meta description’ for each page in your website’s Content Management System (CMS), where you update your website’s content. These are short 1-2 sentence page descriptions hidden in your website’s code but accessible to search engines. They can also display as snippets beneath search engine listings
Drive inbound links
Ask other credible and relevant third-party websites to include a link to your website on theirs. Inbound links are recognised by search engines and are a valuable contributor to SEO.
Update your Google My Business (GMB) listing and create a Yext.com listing
Keep your GMB listing up to date and encourage Google reviews. Google will recognise this activity and it will contribute to your website SEO. Yext.com (a Google My Business Partner) automatically shares your business information across multiple local directories, creating more opportunities for searches to find you.
Test across all devices
Make sure pages load quickly and display well across all devices. Search engines penalise slow page-load speeds and sites which are not mobile-friendly.
Helpful resources
Create a listing with Yext.com (a Google My Business Partner). If your site is on Squarespace, WIX or WordPress, these all also offer free SEO tools.
