So, what is SEO?
In its simplest terms, SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is a set of practices applied to a website to improve its organic ranking in search results. i.e. When someone searches for a result on Google you are presented with a list of search results with different website options. At the top you will normally see some paid listings with the Ad symbol next to them (you can read more about PPC here), and then underneath you will be presented with organic listings which are determined by Google’s Ranking Algorithm, which is driven by the SEO of your website.
As a business you want your website to rank in top spots on Google. The higher your website listing, the more clicks (traffic) you are likely to receive. We’ll explore how you can improve your SEO ranking throughout this article.
It’s important to keep in mind that ultimately, Google wants to provide its users with the most relevant information related to their search query. So, it’s got pretty good at recognising which content provides the most relevant and reliable information. Therefore, the content on your website should always be created with your customer in mind.
How do I create content to help improve your SEO ranking?
Keywords
One of the fundamental practices in SEO involves your website keywords. You will need to research and create a list of keywords that you will include across your site. These keywords will be placed in your content, your page titles, your image descriptions, and your meta tags (a little more on these later).
Choosing your keywords:
- Start by putting yourself in your customers position and write down the words and phrases you expect them to use when they carry out a search.
- Try searching some of those phrases. Make a note of some of the other suggested phrases by Google, as these are often commonly searched questions. As relevance is so important, if you’re creating content that answers the questions you know people are searching for. You should then be in a good position to improve your SEO ranking.
- You can also use Google’s Keyword Planner – this is typically used to plan Paid Ad Campaigns, however, it can be really insightful to help you create your keyword lists. The keyword planner will provide you with data including how many people are typically searching for that keyword or phrase.
Getting your keywords right and how you implement them throughout your website content is critical to your SEO success. If you’d like the support of an expert team that know exactly what their looking for, our SEO team at Carrick Creative are on hand to help.
Meta tags
You heard us mention meta tags earlier on and you might be wondering what these are.
Your meta tags, essentially tell Google what each page on your website is about. Your Meta Tag is made up of a Meta Title, a description, and those all-important keywords. The content management system of your website will have a space to which you can input this information.
In addition to the content that you create for your website, there are also elements of technical SEO that can also affect the position of your website listing in the search results.
What does technical SEO involve?
Website Speed
The speed of your website is also an important factor that is considered during Google’s ranking process. Remember Google wants to provide its’ users with a great experience. If your website is taking a long time to load, it’s probably not going to make the cut.
Mobile Optimisation
With evermore people using mobile to carry out their internet searches, you need to ensure that your website is optimised. This ensures that your user gets the same experience on mobile that they would if they were searching on a desktop.
Site Structure
If you have a great site structure and XML Sitemap, Google will be able to crawl your website and understand what is going on and what it’s all about. It helps Google and other robots work out what is the most important content on your website. You can add a file also known as the robots.txt file to help tell google which is most important. We recommend leaving this to the experts, as minor errors could prevent your site from being recognised in the first place.
Security
Unfortunately, there are people out there that want to do harm within the digital space. Therefore it is necessary to protect your website and secure it as much as possible. Particularly, if you are taking payments! You must have an SSL certificate which encrypts data between a server and a client.
Of course, this article only touches the surface in introducing you to SEO. Find out how Carrick could improve your SEO ranking, please get in touch.