Conducting keyword research to identify relevant search terms. This is vital to the start of your optimisation. You need to choose words and phrases that you will have a better chance of indexing for.
- Relevance to Audience: Ensure that the chosen keywords align with your target audience’s search intent and preferences. Focus on keywords that accurately reflect the products, services, and solutions your business offers, as well as the pain points or needs your audience may have.
- Competition Analysis: Evaluate the competition level and difficulty associated with each keyword to determine the feasibility of ranking for them. Look for a balance between high search volume and low competition keywords to maximize your chances of ranking well in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Optimizing website content, meta tags, and headings for targeted keywords. Images, videos and the text content on your website is very useful for helping to rank for keywords and phrases
- On-Page Optimization: Incorporate targeted keywords strategically into your website’s content, including titles, headings, meta descriptions, and body text. Ensure that keyword usage is natural and relevant to the context of the content to avoid keyword stuffing penalties from search engines.
- Content Quality: Prioritize high-quality, valuable, and relevant content that provides genuine value to your audience. Create informative, engaging, and authoritative content that addresses their needs, solves their problems, or answers their questions effectively while incorporating targeted keywords naturally.
Building high-quality backlinks from reputable websites. This is possibly the hardest element of SEO and takes a lot of time and consistency to achieve anything tangible.
- Relevance and Authority: Focus on building backlinks from reputable and authoritative websites within your industry or niche. Seek out opportunities for guest blogging, partnerships, collaborations, or content syndication with other websites that share similar audiences and interests.
- Natural Link Acquisition: Prioritize natural link acquisition strategies that focus on creating valuable content, fostering relationships with influencers and industry experts, and providing exceptional products or services that naturally attract backlinks from relevant sources.
Creating and optimizing local business listings on search engines.
Ensuring accuracy and consistency on your basic business details is essential for good SEO results.
- Accuracy and Consistency: Ensure that your business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) information is accurate and consistent across all local business listings, directories, and citation sources. Inaccurate or inconsistent NAP information can negatively impact your local search rankings and customer trust.
- Optimized Descriptions: Write compelling and keyword-rich descriptions for your local business listings, highlighting your unique selling points, products, services, and value propositions. Include relevant keywords and location modifiers to improve your visibility in local search results.
Monitoring search engine rankings and making adjustments to improve visibility.
Another time-consuming activity but an essential one as this is a key part of SEO, adjusting and tweaking according to your results
- Regular Tracking: Monitor your website’s search engine rankings regularly using tools like Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, or third-party rank tracking software. Track your rankings for target keywords, as well as organic traffic, impressions, click-through rates (CTRs), and other performance metrics.
- Performance Analysis: Analyse the factors influencing your search engine rankings, such as keyword performance, on-page optimization, backlink profile, and technical SEO issues. Identify areas for improvement and prioritize actionable strategies to enhance your website’s visibility and competitiveness in search results.
The key questions to ask when considering Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for your new business or service are below. Whether you do this yourself or engage with an agency or marketing professional, these will help ensure you get the best start with your search engine optimisation strategy.
- How do I conduct keyword research for my business?
- What on-page SEO techniques should I use to optimize my website?
- How can I build backlinks to improve my website’s authority?
- What are the benefits of local SEO for small businesses?
- How do I track my website’s search engine rankings over time?
