Search Engine Optimisation is one of the key ways to drive new potential customers to your website, after all if you aren’t at the top of the Google rankings – you’ll be losing out business. But how do you get there? And more importantly what should you do to stay there? In part it it’s all about onsite SEO.

Here are some tips to get the best from your onsite SEO:

Write to be read

It’s become easy for lazy marketers to spend months creating heaps of keyword optimized content that says absolutely nothing in a hundred different ways. This may get you to the top of Google, but it won’t persuade anyone to actually read what you’ve written. First and foremost write for your audience, a little less keyword stuffing and more content will mean that visitors stick around to appreciate your insights – rather than switching straight off.

Know your SEO keywords

Do you know the difference between long-tail and short-tail keywords? If not, you should – because the competition for short-tail (quick phrases) keywords is fierce and it may take a long, long time (if ever) for you to make an impact on something like “London accountants”. You shouldn’t face such an uphill struggle if you make your keywords long-tail and thus more relevant to your business “Canary Wharf accountants” for example. You can research keywords using the Google Adwords tool – specifically designed for that purpose.

Use your SEO keywords in the right places

It’s not enough just to have some keywords and use them occasionally – you have to use them in the right way; in your actual text they should appear in your title, in the first paragraph of your copy and at a density of around 1-3% to achieve maximum onsite SEO benefit throughout the rest of the article. But that’s not all, your keywords also need to appear in your meta data – which the users can’t see but the search engines can.

Use images and in the right way

The Internet offers a wonderful medium for visuals, and you should (in keeping with our first point, about writing for readers) keep your articles interesting by including photos and images wherever they add value. Better still there’s an extra HTML tag for images, known as alt text (its purpose is to show text when the user puts their mouse cursor over the picture) the benefit to your onsite SEO strategy is that search engines love it – and it’s OK to keyword stuff like crazy in this space, because it won’t annoy your readers. Images offer you this neat onsite SEO technique.

And then link your content together

One of things search engines look for is how easy it is to find your content within your own website, make links between each new piece of content you create and something that’s been posted before. Better still – make these links using your keywords as anchor text, and you can get twice the Google love for the same effort.

Don’t forget onsite SEO in your marketing efforts, it’s important, relatively easy to do and creates benefits with search engines that you might otherwise have to pay for (in real money) in other online marketing activities.

If you need any more information on SEO, please get in touch!

Google  is constantly evolving, a few years ago it’s result’s page would have paid search (pay per click adwords) listings at the top and to the right, and then 10 natural website listings below and nothing else.

Now Google’s landing page has a myriad of different types of listing and information, as well as paid ads and natural listings, there are local maps, local businesses, relevant images, social information, shopping items and more.

Because of this there are more opportunities to promote your businesses products and services but you have to be cleverer in how you go about doing it.

Here are our best practice tips to not only getting yourself on page 1, but getting yourself in the right place!

1. Local Search Results Are Becoming King

By local search results we mean Local Maps and Local Places (have a look on the screenshot above). Eye mapping studies have shown that this is where the eye is first drawn to when a search result page loads, therefore getting your business into these listings is very important, particularly if you rely on local customers for business.

Key methods for getting ranked are:

• Exposure: Ensure that your correct business information is listed in as many (reputable) locations as possible around the Internet. As always, consistency is king. If you write “St.” instead of “Street” on your Google Places page, make sure your other listings reflect the same.
• Google Places page optimisation: Just like your website, make sure your Places page is properly optimised. Include categories that match you businesses products and services exactly, and point your Places page back to a city-specific landing page if applicable.
• Reviews: Google will only display reviews from Google, but getting reviews from aggregators like Yelp, Superpages or Trip Advisor will help increase your presence.

2. You Can No Longer Have Search Without Social!

The division between search and social has officially ended. Social cues such as Twitter shares, Facebook likes, Google +1s and social bookmarking heavily influence search rankings. With the rise of Google+ it is essential to have a Google+ page as Google are taking it into account more and more when determining SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). As well as this search results are becoming personalised for each person. With any SEO campaign you put into motion, include a social aspect to it to facilitate information sharing.

3. Think of People, not Robots, When Optimising Keywords

People usually search in Google because they are looking for the answer to a specific question. Think about what queries people will use when looking for a business offering your products and services; there’s no point in being #1 for a search term that no one ever searches for! Make sure you spend the time when undertaking SEO work to do the keyword research. What will bring you visitors that want to buy?

4. Content Links Are King — Good Writers Are Sorcerers

Google will always be one step ahead of the game as they create the rules. One of the rules it’s introduced is that they aren’t a fan of ‘spam’ style links and so for the most effective long-term SEO strategy, move the focus back to great content, both on your website and across other sites. Building article driven links will be hugely beneficial, an easy way to do this is to writeguest blog posts for other websites that reference your site

5. Use : Microformats, Rich Snippets and Schema.org when coding your page

The major search engines have worked together to develop Schema.org, a set of website standards that will give the search engines more information about what your site is all about, making it easier for those engines to read the site’s data and index accordingly.  Search engines including Bing, Google and Yahoo! rely on this markup to improve the display of search results, making it easier for people to find the right web pages.

By using rich snippets, for example, you’re able to tell Google what information to feature in SERPs: product reviews and prices, upcoming events, recipe cooking times, etc. The added data will increase your click-through rate because users are able to preview more about the link before they commit to the click.

6. It Doesn’t Mean Anything Without Data

No matter how big you business is, whether you’re a sole-trader or a PLC, it is vitally important to not only get results but also to track your marketing performance and with regard to SEO, this is vital!

It is of course very important to track ranking positions for your keywords.  However, since Google introduced personalised searches it is harder to tell exactly where your page will be displayed.

What you should be doing is tracking simple key performance indicators (KPIs) to show results, for instance, the number of pages visitors are landing on, the “stickiness” or bounce rate of those pages, and the number of keywords driving traffic to each of those landing pages. Google Analytics displays all of this data.

If you would like to discuss any of this with regard to your business we’d be delighted to talk to you, please email me at edward@thewebmarketeers.co.uk and we’ll talk!