7 Ways To Boost Your SEO Campaigns (No SEO Agency Required!)
SEO is very important in order to get your website in front of your target audience. Getting your website listed in search engines requires some knowledge but you don’t need to be a technical genius to make the necessary changes or pay an SEO agency either. In this article we’ll cover the basic of SEO that you can do yourself.
SEO is big business.
It’s complicated, confusing and leaves you at the mercy of Google, but still, it’s highly effective and should be a part of any digital marketing campaign.
Why? I hear you ask.
Because SEO delivers measurable results for a business, you may have said 12 months ago that ranking at the top of Google wasn’t essential for your business but how has that changed since the national lockdowns were introduced 9 months ago?
Since we entered in and out and in and out again of national and regional lockdowns, business has flowed online as our high streets closed.
Whilst it may be impractical for a percentage of businesses to not go online whilst they have to shut, e.g., nightclubs, for others there has been a huge market place online and with that vital sales, revenue and new customers that have helped businesses through the lockdown periods.
SEO is what drives more traffic to these websites and gets them found online – You don’t need to stress over the phrase SEO – Which stands for search engine optimisation – as there are some things you can do yourself to help your website rank better in Google.
You may want to get the help of an seo agency – But before you do that, here’s 7 ways to boost your SEO campaigns – Without the help of an SEO agency.
Keyword Research
Keyword research can be difficult, but it doesn’t need to be. There are some very simple ways to find keywords.
Firstly, think about what you might call your ‘money keyword’ that one phrase such as ‘seo company’ ‘seo agency’ or ‘seo expert’ – Things that the majority of people will type in to Google to find your website.
Next when you do that, run a Google search and go to the bottom of the page, at the bottom of the page you will see between 6 and 10 blue text links, these are good alternative keywords that Google associates with your main keyword that you searched for.
Another good way to find keywords is to start typing your keyword into Google and look at the suggestions that appear on the drop-down menu as you type – these are what Google associates with your keyword/phrase and are a good source to further get keywords for your campaigns.
You can also try Google keyword planner; you can enter keywords and be given suggestions – Typically the keywords that have the highest cost per click are the most searched so they are a good idea to include in your campaigns.
Title Tags
Title tags are vital to SEO and serve two purposes.
The first, is they appear in the blue bar at the top of your browser and secondly, they are, majority of the time, the text that appears in the Google search results that you click on.
You should be able to edit your title tags – If not ask a web designer – Make sure you include your keyword and brand name in your title tag as well as something descriptive e.g,
SEO Agency | Guaranteed top 3 rankings | ALT Agency
Something to convey value to the person searching and entice them to click.
Having the keyword as the first part of your title tag also tells Google what your page/business is about and gives them an idea on what to rank your website for.
Keep your title tags as natural as possible, include a keyword and brand name if possible, but try to write for users not Google.
Description Tags
Description tags are the descriptions that get displayed in the Google search results beneath the title tag that you click on.
Again, you should be able to edit your description tags using your CMS or your web designer will be able to do so.
There’s a real art to writing description tags and they are equally as important as your title tag. You want to include your keyword first and then convey some benefits of your product/page with a call to action if possible.
E.g.,
SEO Agency Birmingham. Guaranteed results in 3 months or less complete with a money back guarantee. Prices start at £750+vat. View packages.
Something like the above conveys a keyword, a value proposition, a guarantee and also a call to action, it’s a good template to follow.
Content
Content is king. Always has been and always will be.
Google LOVES content.
Content engages users, it provides value, educates and shows Google that your website is of a top quality!
Content needs to be unique – there’s no point saying the same thing 3 times across the page as it will just frustrate your user.
You Might Also Like: Be Creative With Your Website Content
Content isn’t just words either.
You can add all sorts of content to your website as content comes in all shapes and forms:
- Text
- Video
- Animated videos
- Testimonials
- Images
- Infographics
All of these types of content take the pressure off reading your content and make your content more enjoyable and easier to digest.
No one wants to read a wall of text, break it up, use graphics, images, headers, colour and infographics to convey points that someone can digest at a glance.
User Experience
This all comes down to how someone interacts with your website.
User experience is how easy your website is to navigate, the journey a user takes and just overall how long they stick around on your website for – The better your user experience – the longer someone will stay on your website.
You can use Google Analytics to help you figure all this out – It’s really very simple.
Take a look at your bounce rate – This is the percentage of traffic that visits your website and exits almost immediately without taking any action. You want a bounce rate below 40-50% where possible. Google analytics can give you an overall overage bounce rate for your site and also show you your individual page bounce rate – optimise these pages and try to get this bounce rate as low as possible.
Look at your Time on site metric that Google offers.
Time on site is a good indicator as to how useful your site is. If your average time on site is less than a minute then you really have problems you need to figure out. You want it to be a good couple of minutes long at least. You can increase this by provide better and unique content than your competitors and having a very clearly defined journey and value proposition that takes your users by the hand and walks them through your website page by page.
Keep it simple – Does your website tell someone who you are, what you do and what they should do/click next within 3-5 seconds?
Ask family and friends to check your website and ask for their immediate opinion and what they think they should do next – This will help you iron out your user journey and improve your overall user experience.
Google wants to provide the best experience to its users – getting these metrics in order will help with that.
Page Speed
A new vital metric that everyone is obsessing about.
Reportedly for every second over 5 seconds that your website takes to load you can lose between 7 and 13% of your visitors so page speed is vital for conversions.
Page speed is also a ranking factor, Google wants your website to load quickly so that users can start interacting with it right away – This ties in a little with user experience.
Make sure you don’t overload your website with images or third-party scripts and ensure that you have good web hosting.
Aim for a load time of 3 seconds and you won’t go too far wrong.
Backlinks
The holy grail of SEO (allegedly!)
Backlinks are what help your website rank and the better quality backlinks that you have pointing to your website – the better.
You want to avoid too many backlinks – it’s not about quantity.
You want to avoid spammy backlinks – It’s all about relevance and quality.
Having backlinks from gambling, casino, adult or dating sites is not looked highly upon by Google.
Let’s say you sell… Formula 1 art print posters as your business.
You would want backlinks from: F1 fan sites, Home inspiration/improvement websites, hobby websites and even art websites at a push – All relevant to what you sell.
Conclusion
These 7 super helpful SEO tips will get you going and getting better rankings for your website.
SEO is important it can change your business overnight, but stay on the right side of Google as they constantly update their algorithm, follow their content and quality guidelines or you could end up with a ban/Google penalty.