What is SEO?
You probably hear digital marketers talk about SEO all the time, but what is it? SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a technique that helps to improve your website’s rankings in search engine results. The higher up your website is, the better. If you want your website to appear more easily online, then SEO is not something to be ignored.
We know it sounds technical but don’t worry, this article will give you 7 great SEO tips to help get you started.
Use the Right Amount of Keywords
We talk a lot about using keywords as a way of improving SEO. If you choose good keywords which target the content in your website, it will help your site’s rankings increase, which leads to a better online visibility for your business and in turn, an increased footfall.
Just make sure not to overuse those keywords. Often that keyword will show up in the title, URL, meta description and page content. You don’t want to risk overusing because Google might penalise you for it and that won’t be beneficial for your rankings. There are various tools online that will scan for an overuse of keywords!
Set the Correct Time Zone
Make sure you set the correct time zone on your site. This is important so your posts match your time zone.
If you’re scheduling posts ahead of time, as most of us do, you want to make sure they’re posted at the time you intended! This one sounds simple but it will help to keep your posts schedule together.
Connect to Google Search Console
Google Search Console helps you to monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google search results. You don’t have to sign up for it to be included in the search results, but it’s a free service and well worth having!
It offers several tools and invaluable insights.
Use Good Permalinks
What is a permalink? This is basically the URL used for a post, page or other bit of content. URLs are an important SEO factor so make sure you check your permalinks.
One thing to be wary of though! If your site is live, it has probably been crawled by Google already. This means than any changed permalinks could cause you a bit of a problem – you don’t want any broken links!
Use Internal Links
Internal links are great and are a brilliant and fairly simple way of boosting your SEO. Internal links are simply links within your website’s content that link to other areas of your website. They make it easy for bots to navigate your site and also help any posts rank well in search engine results.
Not only this but internal links are beneficial for your website users. They make the navigation of your website easier and encourage customers to browse different content. We’d recommend reading through your site and adding in more internal links and keep this in mind when you create new content!
Check your Website Speed
Slow websites are a huge negative. Site visitors won’t wait for a buffering, slow response. Essentially, a slow site equals low sales, which means it isn’t good for SEO.
Fortunately, there are fairly simple solutions to a slow website. Firstly, make sure all the updates on your site have been done!
Use a Sitemap
What is a sitemap? Google states that it’s simply a file “where you provide information about the pages, videos, and other files on your site, and the relationships between them.” They enable search engines to crawl your site more efficiently so it’s worth using.
It also ensures that your whole website is considered, you don’t want important content to be skipped over!
So, how can we help?
We’ve talked about a lot of different SEO tips in this article and we completely understand that sometimes it becomes overwhelming or time-consuming. After all, SEO isn’t a quick fix and requires a decent amount of time.
At Shine On Digital we offer both SEO and Local SEO packages to help boost your business’ rankings! Get in touch or give us a call on 01706 482017.