Search Engine Optimisation or SEO, for short is one of those phrases that has bandied around a lot in selling and marketing circles over the past eight years. In simple-man’s terms SEO is the process whereby you or any website controller is taking every possible action with its website to ensure that when Google “crawls” the web that the website appears as high as possible in Google’s organic listings. The problem is, Google do not disclose exactly what it is that you need to do in order to perform-well. Over the past fifteen years the SEO business has become a multi-billion Euro industry internationally. It is THAT important. Over time, with trial and error and with Google letting us slightly under its hood, some best practices have been established. This article will discuss those best practices:
What really needs to be considered with SEO – SEO is a marathon and definitely not a sprint. It is something that needs to be kept in your mind at all times when operating a website.
- Your Websites Back Link Portfolio
Over the years through research and through in-interview confessions of Google staff, the largest contributing factor to how your website performs on Google rankings is the amount of and the source of links that your website gets from other established websites online. No longer is that website just a source of traffic to your website but Google sees that link as a trust signal. The more established the website is that has a hyperlink to your domain, your website will perform better over time.
You need to explore link building techniques, ways to track your links, ways to track what links your competitors are getting and a way to make sure that you are moving in the correct direction all the time.
Example:
If you are attending a trade show and your company is listed in the exhibitor section with a hyperlink your URL will pick up some SEO “juice” off the back of this link.
- Your Site’s Architecture
Every website and every page on that website has certain features which Google searches for. This is Google’s way of knowing what is on that website. There are certain steps that every website owner can take in order for Google to consider the website for what you want it to rank for.
These include:
- H1 or SEO Title: This is the page title for your page. For a website’s home page the page title would include a keyword that would catch the most important element of what that company did. Some examples of this can be seen below:
- URL/ Slug: Google puts importance on how you categorise or what you call your webpages. For example, if you were making a new webpage and it was specifically about the fact that you sell men’s clothes this you should set up your website so that men’s clothes is in the URL e.g. yourwebsitename.ie/mensclothes
- Meta-Description: The meta-description is the element that is displayed in the SERPs (Search Engine Research Pages) below the URL and slug. This acts as a sales pitch/ description of your product or service. It is crucial that your keyword is always contained within your meta-description.
Other Important Factors to consider are keyword density, links to other valuable pages on your website or complimentary sites.
- Submit your Site Map to Google through Google Webmaster Tools
Submitting your site map to Google is one of the most important things that you should do when your new website is developed. In essence, submitting a site map is telling Google where your content is and that you would like Google to frequently check it for new content etc.
Submitting a site map has been made easier in recent years by the creation of various plug-ins such as Yoast SEO for WordPress. Yoast SEO allows you to easily compile the components of your website and you submit through Google Webmaster Tools.
Bonus: There are ways to check to see if Google has had a Site Map submission for you or one of your competitor’s websites. You can check this at the following link:
https://seositecheckup.com/tools/sitemap-test
RIKON can discuss this and many more elements of your digital marketing strategy with you. Call us today to find out more.
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