Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of increasing one’s business website traffic by focusing on the organic traffic, that is, free traffic. This can be done by focusing on various aspects to improve your website.
Although this is a long term process, still many people in the marketing industry are vying for this strategy. Increased traffic from this strategy can also translate into increased sales and conversions.
With that said, there are different aspects and tools you will need if you want an SEO strategy that is effective.
It All Begins With You.
Your SEO strategy will not work unless the person doing it (this can either be you or an SEO expert from an SEO company in Australia) does not put in the effort to work with the right SEO analyst.
Due to its longevity in terms of seeing results, SEO will not work effectively if it is not constantly updated, changed, and checked.
The truth in SEO is that you are not changing the search engines, you are adjusting your content and website structure because of the search engines. Should there be any update done in the search engines, then certainly you also need to make the necessary updates for your content strategy.
You should be willing to learn
Every year, search engines announces new updates in their respective algorithms. These are ways for the search engines to better scan and choose which web pages to include in the search engine result pages.
At times the search engine co-operations will make decisions that don’t favour your current website content strategy, you need to be able to learn how to adjust and quickly update your website to have it fit the new requirements as dictated by the search engines.
You should be good with your words
Often at times, content and SEO goes hand in hand – this is true in terms of making your website articles visible by including keywords in your articles naturally without them looking spammay. This includes custom writing title tags and meta descriptions, above other things.
You should be data driven
Doing SEO is not a hit or miss thing, every decision you make should be backed by the data you have. This data can be extracted from your SEO Audit or from any Google Tester for your website.
You should have strong communication skills
You might think that when doing SEO, you just need to have the skills of knowing your way around the internet and your website. This is a misled mindset. Yes, you do need a the basic understanding of how to make update for your website and such, but you also need the skill to communicate and become convincing.
This is needed when you need to build links with other websites online. Doing so will help you build your reputation online. Aside from that, this will widen your reach in terms of your audience.
If you think about it, this is quite similar to networking (when you compare it to the offline world) and in doing that you should be able to sell yourself (or in this case your website) without being too pushy about it.
You should have the patience
The fact that your SEO will not suddenly make your website popular means that you should have the patience to wait for it and to continue improving your strategy as much as possible.
This is where many experts would encourage you to hire an expert, and we are not just saying that because we provide SEO services ourselves. Many people would give up halfway through their SEO plan because of the frustration or continue on but would have important aspects of their SEO strategy to be missing because of lack of knowledge and the tools to use (in either testing or running it) to have it run properly and efficiently.
The Tools You Need To Help You With Your SEO
There are several tools you can use to make this an effective strategy, these tools can either be free or you have to pay for them. Your knowledge on implementing your SEO strategy would not be sufficient if not paired with the right tools to use.
A tool to create you an SEO Audit
The first thing you will need is the tool for the SEO audit. There are several free tools for your SEO audit but just make sure that these platforms are to be trusted, such as:
SEM Rush, SEO Profiler, MAJESTIC, or SEO MOZ.
To ensure that you get a reliable result you can tap businesses that offer SEO audit services. This is because the result for your SEO will serve as your guide on which aspects of your strategy need improving. Such process is so technical that it will scan through every page present in your website and analyse it giving you an overview of what is missing and what is strong in your strategy.
Google Testers
Aside from a tool for your SEO audit, you will need several google website testers. This varies from checking the speed of your website, its responsiveness to different screens, and whether or not it has a safe browser.
These aspects are not covered in the SEO audit and should be tested separately. The reason for its importance is that it will help you improve how your website functions because these things will affect whether or not a website visitor will linger on your website.
It is noteworthy that the number of minutes a person lingers in your website (and then will click) will affect your website ranking in the search engine result pages.
Google Trends and Keyword Planner
This is needed to identify which word you need to use as a keyword in order to be seen online.
Having extremely high traffic but attracting the wrong audience is counterproductive. There is a need to be able to use the proper keywords for your audience.
That said, it is important to choose keywords that are in the characteristic of a long tail keyword, meaning narrowed down, specific keywords. Use Google trends and the keyword planner to choose the keywords properly.
Choosing the right keyword is vital in not just being seen but also being seen by the proper audience. In fact there are several aspects of your SEO that is vital to attract the proper audience.
The Factors of Your SEO Plan that Needs Focus
SEO is composed of several factors and there are certain areas which you will need to focus on to make this strategy work for the better.
On Page Factors
These are areas in your SEO that can be adjusted on the way your page is adjusted. There are varying aspects of this, such as:
Content
You need to ensure that you have original and fresh content. This currently seems to be the number one priority when it comes to SEO because of the influx of fake news from the previous years. Also, there were several complaints of people having duplicate content and still being able to have a good ranking in the search engine result pages.
With this in mind, you need to ensure that what you put out should not have any duplicate, or even plagiarised content.
Keywords
The use of keywords is important. This can be used when making blogs, articles, title tags, meta descriptions, and many more. Keywords serve as your identifier – the very thing that will set your website apart. In fact, the proper use of your keywords will affect how you will rank in the result pages.
Image Optimization
Having to clean up your image is a great way to ensure that your website is able to load up fast. This can be done by adjusting the size of the photo or minimising the photos you have in your website.
Off Page Factors
Basically, these are your links. How you connect with other websites matter because it will reflect to the kind of website you have. You may have tons of website connected to yours but if it does not seem legit, then this will not matter.
This is why it is important to be able to link with other websites that are on the same field as you are because it will ensure that you have a good footing in the your business.
Social Networking
With the rapid use of social media, this is getting more and more important in terms of marketing. As such, in SEO you will also need a little social media marketing to widen your audience reach. Likewise, you will need to use this as a means to build links.
How you make use of your social media pages can affect your website ranking because you can use this as a medium to make your website known, like when you redirect the social media users to your website by sharing your URL.
Technical Factors
These are areas in your SEO that will need some technical adjustments. The following are just some of the important ones you need to take note of.
URLs per page
The URL is what leads the person searching for information to your website. If there is a problem with your URL, this will also affect your ranking, that is if there is a duplication in the URL or error that will discourage users to visit your website again.
Additionally, it is recommended to customise your URLs and make it more appealing as well as for the user to know directly what to expect from the page based in the URL alone. This will also help when it comes to being visible in the result pages.
SSL Certificates
An SSL Certificate, or the Secure Sockets Layer Certificate is a protected barrier for any sensitive information you sent out (and receive) in your website.
What this does is endure that vital information are kept secret or kept encrypted so it will not be available to any person other than those it is meant for. Considering the popularity of online shopping, you need to make sure that
User experience
There are a lot of ways you can improve the user experience in your website. This is by taking focus on the architecture of your website as well as its responsiveness.
With the popularity of the use of multiple screens, you need to make sure that your website is able to properly translate regardless of which screen is being used. As mentioned, the number of minutes people viewing your website counts in your ranking in the search engine result pages. Your information will be easily accessed if your website can be viewed regardless of the screen used when trying to view it.
The same is true when you consider the architecture of your website. You need to consider how information is being processed in your website by taking a look at your site’s heat map. In here you will know which areas of your website the user (with the help of the mouse pointer) lingers on and clicks.
With the proper understanding of the heat maps, you can place call to action buttons or even any of your announcements properly to attract your website visitors.
Conclusion
SEO is a complex reality that needs constant updating and revisions. It does not sleep nor rest. That said, when you do the SEO, you too do should not rest (figuratively) and give up halfway.
You need to be consistent and continue to learn about new updates and trends each year (or whenever they make an update) to enable you to make the necessary adjustments in your SEO strategy.
Similarly, you need to have the proper tools to back up your skill, for this will help you in ensuring that any adjustment you made in your website was done right and that everything is working smoothly. This is important to ensure that your website is running properly.