SEO Basics: Increasing Your Website’s Visibility
A backgrounder for getting found online.
SEO – short for Search Engine Optimisation – is a set of practices that get your website content to show up higher on search engines like Google so people can find you. It’s about connecting with the right audience, drawing them to your website and finding a way to convert that traffic into an action: a sale, a booking, a newsletter sign up etc. SEO is about trial and error, watching your analytics, making changes and tweaks and then watching your traffic (and conversions) grow!
Before we delve into what these practices are and how you can use them to get more people visiting our website, let’s find out:
How a search engine actually works
Search engines do 3 things:
Crawling: every search engine has spiders (bots) that crawl your website and grab all of the information.
Indexing: they are taking every page on your website, the words and text and putting them in a file. Think of this as a giant digital filing cabinet.
Ranking: This is where Google determines how relevant your file is to what their audience is searching for and decides if you’ll show on page one or page 10. The more relevant, the higher your ranking.
When it comes to planning your SEO strategy it helps to start by pinpointing your main goal, do you want to promote a specific service? Build an audience for your writing? Increase sales? Get more organic traffic? Show up in Google Places results as a top local business?
Now that you’ve set your sights on an SEO goal, it’s time to get to know about these practices that will help your website be more easily discovered through search engines.
Three steps to let Google you know you exist
Install Google Search Console: verify your site and get Google to crawl and index it so visitors can find you.
Follow these instructions if you’ve got a Squarespace website.Use the right keywords that people are actually searching for: we need to know what our audience is searching for AKA the keywords they are typing into Google and other search engines. To find out, you can simply start by asking them, “if you were searching for me on Google what would you type in?” You can also use research tools to find keywords. Once you have this information, use the keywords strategically throughout your website including in headings, SEO titles & meta descriptions.
Grow your domain authority: this takes time and effort. Ranking high all comes down to your authority. This is measured in a score called Domain Authority and is about how much Google trusts you. It is the hardest number to grow and usually takes years to build. There are a number of ways to do this which I’ll go into in more detail shortly.
Creating content to get eyeballs on your website
SEO copywriting is strategic content creation that meets a searcher’s (AKA your potential client’s) exact needs and should consider 1) what your people are typing into Google and 2) knowing where to put the content on your website so you can show up on Google. This strategic content helps people discover you, educates them about your expertise and services, and helps you build trust with them until they’re ready to purchase.
Google wants to reward websites that create better and more useful content that was written for humans and not stuffed with keywords and written for a search engine. So when it comes to creating content, focus on maximising that quality!
How’s that for a short intro to SEO? I’d love to hear what other questions you’ve got about SEO and go into more depth on topics like growing your domain authority, alternatives marketing avenues to posting on social media and how to create quality content that positions you and your business as go-to in yourindustry.
