Search engine optimisation (SEO) is one of the most important web design trends to know about in 2019, but for novices, there’s a lot of conflicting advice out there. In this guide, we cut through some of the misinformation to bring you a primer on how to do SEO on a shoestring a great tool to help with this is Aqueous-digital.
What is SEO?
At its most fundamental, SEO is all about improving and increasing the flow of search engine traffic to your website. You do this by building your site to be user-friendly, creating sound site architecture and by implementing content and search strategies. Part of the reason for the conflicting information out there is that different websites have different ways of achieving these three things. If you’re looking for a tailor-made SEO solution, it’s worth outsourcing some of the work to the experts at ALT Agency. They will ensure you are doing everything right that is going to make Google happy.
1. Think local
SEO isn’t just important for ecommerce specialists. Local search should be a major area of focus for any good brick and mortar businesses. In fact, as many as 78% of location-based mobile searches eventuate in an offline purchase.
There are two things to concentrate on when it comes to local search.
The most important one is claiming your Google My Business page. As well as giving you credibility and authenticating your business with official information, reviews, and pictures, having a quality GMB page will help you get to the top of local search in no-time. That means showing Google your business is active and popular by generating reviews and questions, responding to them and keeping your page updated with the correct information.
Beyond this, it’s a great idea to list your business in online directories.
2. Building backlinks
Link building is one of the best ways of increasing your long-term search ranking. By generating links into your site from other well-regarded pages and sites, you generate something called link equity. The more of this, the better your search rankings and the higher the number of people visiting your site. Some businesses will do this themselves, whilst others will contact search engine optimization professionals to create these niche edits for them. That usually ensures that your link looks more natural on other relevant pages. This should help the business to grow and receive more website traffic.
Links are easy with a good content strategy and link management software such as can be found at https://bitly.com/pages/features/link-management. Some of the most linkable types of content are listicles, infographics, and proprietary software. Another great approach to link building is to use press releases with inbound links to your website. If a website publishes an article about your business and links to your website, this will be a strong signal of a quality website and should help you see a ranking boost.
3. On-page SEO
SEO is often largely about the content you have on your page. Keywords are the phrases people input into search consoles and are the bread and butter of any good search marketing strategy.
Search marketing starts with a basic analysis of what people are searching for in your niche (you can use tools like Google’s Keyword Planner to do this). The best phrases are specific longtail searches with relatively high search volumes but relatively low competition. It’s all about targeting the more detailed searches in the niche that your business is looking to fulfil. From here, it’s all about dispersing your chosen keywords frequently but naturally across your web pages, and if you have the time to create content targeting certain phrases, even better! Of course, not everyone has time to maintain a blog and release near-daily updates. But Google search will prioritise regularly updated content, so it’s always worth giving things an overhaul as and when you have time.
Hey, I’m Rory and I am the ultimate accidental geek.
Born in London I was never interested in technologies until I started a part-time job at Apple and now I can’t get enough. Join me as a help you navigate the world of tech with some of my fellow geeks.