Apparently ‘content is king’. And Google has been saying for years that SEO is dead – focus on quality original content and forget SEO. But we beg to differ. Every website needs SEO. Even informal pages should be treated as a landing page, and optimised to drive more traffic, and improve conversion rate.
Having a non-optimised website is like having a beautiful painting hidden away in a dark room. If no one can find and see it, how are they supposed to know what it’s all about? Getting a page or pages to rank on the 1st page on Google isn’t easy, and it’s even harder without SEO. Let’s have a look at what a page should look to achieve.
Market and competitor research can give a better idea about people you want to visit your site. What are they looking for? What answers do they need? What are their pains? There are many ways to conduct research, and you can end up wrapped up in it for weeks. To keep it simple, go for 5 competitors and have a good look at what they’re doing better than you might be.
On-Site SEO
Anything that goes on your website. From writing and content to technical elements, if it’s done on your pages, then it’s on-Site. Content is King, as Google keeps telling us, so let’s start with that one!
To write good content, all one needs to do is write about topics that people are looking for. Sounds so easy, except that you need to find all those things that will make your article rank higher then competitors’. Not to mention how Google will favour big brands.
Speaking of brands, branding has always been a big part of Search Engine Optimisation. Getting brand message across to your audience is another challenge. Too often we assume that we know what our clients/customers want. Unless we ask them, we can’t know for sure. This is why we need to research.
It is important to write engaging page titles and meta descriptions. After all, this is what searcher will see first when looking on Google and other engines. When someone searches for a word, or a phrase and is presented with results, you want them to click on your link. Write compelling meta-data – this is just as if not more important than compelling on-the-page copy.
For instance, if I was looking for a mobile phone, I would go for a search result that gave the most relevant description, while intriguing me to read further. If done right, that page will then have a good click through rate - one of the important factors to rank high. Just bear in mind that technical SEO is there to support content.
OK, now we have a nice article which should drive traffic, optimised title and description, but people don’t seem to be coming to the site yet. It’s painful and frustrating, but that’s life. SEO is not a one-off thing. It’s an ongoing task and takes time to get search engines to pick up on you. There is no such thing as easy pickings in terms of keywords these days, competition is high and it will get higher. One of the ways to get noticed is Building Links and Content Marketing.
Off-Site SEO
Link Building helps content get spotted by wider audience, and build the authority. In an ideal world, our content would attract links. In reality we would need to go and get them. Quality links count. Bad links will only make things worse. You can reach out to relevant sites and ask for a way to get a link.
Promoting your content is vital, and this can be done fairly cheaply. There are more than 300 Social Networks in the digital world and most of them are free to join. However, we still need to know how to promote it in an interesting way. Social users are wary of all ads and sponsored posts that are thrown at them every time they open their profiles.
The best way to use social networks is to have your profile and/or page where you can share anything and everything that might get your followers attention. The key is to build up followers. Again, it is not easy and we believe you need an expert to do it right.
Another way to market content is to use distribution networks. Now these can be costly, but will reach wider audience sooner. Those “from the web” articles that you can see on most of websites, come from content distribution networks.
How to Convert Them
Well done, you are now getting people visiting your pages. Oh wait, but they’re not converting. I want them to spend money, call me, do something on the site. Have you told them what to do? Is it clearly visible what they should do? Your visitors most likely want to do something on your site, but aren’t sure what to do. Define call to action elements and make them stand out.
The future for Search
Search engines are evolving, we need to adapt constantly to keep up. Just because a site is optimised today, does not mean it won’t need improvements tomorrow. Remember it’s all about what people want to find and providing them with relevant information. Of course, after they’re able to find your pages. It won’t happen overnight, just keep doing it and you’ll see the results.
Posted 31 March 2015 by