If you look through almost every single industry there is, there is always one constant tip to take on board for you to be able to achieve your aims; keep things simple. Many people take the ‘run before you can walk approach’ and apply complicated methods to achieve the right results. Like a football manager who bustles into a new job and immediately tries to play an overcomplicated system that is just too confusing for the players to understand – it won’t work and will only present adverse results. Believe it or not, that analogy is exactly the same in every industry that deals with people, including websites! Maybe in the long term, strategies can be horned and shaped, eventually branching off into the style that you’d like to eventually implement, but to start with – you need to get people and on board, listening from the off, so the simple method is always the best. Make sure you can walk, before you attempt to run.
If you administer a website – the best way to gain long-term results is by implementing web page optimisation into your content.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a long-term web page optimisation strategy that is designed to improve your website’s visibility in search engines, which include Google, Yahoo and Bing. By creating specially-arranged content, that is peppered with keywords that users would use their search engine to look for, you are able to make your site rank more higher; dramatically increasing the likelihood that it will receive a vast increase in visitors.
Search engines exist to present their users with quality content – if they didn’t, then they nobody would use them. So they ‘reach out’ to the internet and using complex lines of code (generally referred to as ‘spiders’) that literally crawl the web and latch on to web pages that fulfil the criteria that they have set out in their code. That criteria generally looks for web pages that;
o Authority sites are websites that are known by the industry to offer ‘quality’ content – such as news pages, online encyclopaedias, popular blogs etc. The spiders recognise these sites as ‘safe’, so any link to them will be highly regarded. In the long-term, if your website continues to post quality content and is well-received – you may even become an authority site!
o A bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who navigate away from the website after viewing only one page. The aim is obviously to have as low a bounce rate as possible. You need to keep people on your website by making multiple pages attractive and intriguing enough that people will stick around and want to learn more about what you have to offer.
We all have a certain amount of storage space on our personal computers – the same goes for even the biggest of search engines. Only the better optimised pages will be able to stick around a search engines’ rankings – people even resort to tricks in an attempt to attract the bots into ranking their website. When found, the search engine will not display any website that indulges in ‘Black Hat SEO’. Things that search engines don’t want to see include;
Even if you abide by SEO practices – there are ways in which you can become unstuck if you fall into the trap of using any ‘underhand’ SEO techniques. There are two main types of SEO techniques; Black Hat and White Hat SEO.
Black Hat is the tactic of using repetitive, unrelated (and sometimes, hidden) keywords on a website that focus on attracting search engines to list their content (sometimes that are not even related to the keywords) as high as possible. The method is employed by those who are seeking a quick financial return on their website, in place of any long-term strategy, as Black Hat SEO could see a website eventually banned from a search engines listings.
White Hat is the method that uses keywords tailored to a particular audience and fall within SEO best practices. This is a strategy that is best employed by businesses that are seeking a long-term presence in a search engines listings. With White Hat tactics, search engines are more likely to uphold your rankings as you continue to grow and add more content, so if you’re a website that is need of a constant flow of visitors - this is the only tactic that you will need.
Now we’ve established what SEO is, as well as what and not what to do – it’s time to build a cohesive SEO strategy. Instead of paying through the nose for marketing courses or advertising that will only offer short-term results, SEO offers a simple web page optimisation solution by laying down a long-term plan in order to attract users to your website. By using specially-arranged keywords that a user may search for, you can design intriguing, quality content that will attract a reader and make them interested in your services. But where do you start? Here are some tips on creating a good SEO strategy;
1. What keywords would my customer or target audience use to describe what they want?
2. What is generally the one thing that may prevent someone from using my service?
3. What is the best way for me to engage with them?
1. List all your competitors – use a search engine to search for similar websites, using keywords that you have already mined that relate to your service, location and content. Remember - the websites that appear on the first couple of pages of a search are the ones that get SEO right, so be sure to study them in detail.
2. Research your competitors – now you’ve got your list, look closely at their websites, specifically the written content and look at the keywords and different styles they use to present the information.
3. Compare them with your website – once you’ve got the information on who your competitors are and what they do to implement SEO, look at your own website and compare. Think about how you can present similar ideas, but done to your specific style so you can stay ahead of them.
Adapting these easy steps will set you on the path of optimising your website, helping you to retain readers and hopefully, increase conversions. So put on your white hat, sit at your computer – and happy optimising!
Here at SEO Junkies we are a professional web page optimisation agency that is dedicated to helping websites to improve their output and gain more visitors. We have vast experience in the industry, having already helped many businesses, of varying sizes, to rank better on search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.
If you’re looking for help on SEO and would like to learn more about the method, or any other digital marketing service, please don’t hesitate to contact our team of friendly experts today on 0845 373 0595 or you can send us an e-mail at sales@seojunkies.com
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