This article will outline 3 simple steps you can take to improve your SEO. It’s particularly relevant for new websites, but even existing sites can benefit from these 3 tips.
What is SEO?
SEO is search engine optimisation. That is: optimising “everything” on and around your website for search engines so that you rank as highly as possible in relevant search results. SEO work never stops – there are always things which can be done to improve your rankings.
Hang on – haven’t you already optimised my website for me?
Yes! But that’s only part of the story.
When we build your website we’ll look at what you want to rank for and agree some keywords and phrases that should be woven into your content. What you write is the most important thing. We’ll optimise the site, making sure the content is written in the best way possible, that images on the pages reflect the SEO terms, and ensure that the pages are structured in the best possible way. This is what we call ‘on page SEO’. It’s a lot of work, but it’s only the beginning … (NB We also build the site for speed from the ground up and make sure it’s fully accessible. To find out more about why this is important for SEO, see what we cover in our WordPress Health Check)
So why do I not appear in searches?
Google looks at new websites with a healthy sense of cynicism. Are you really who you say you are? Are you a legitimate business? New sites don’t just immediately start appearing on page 1 of the searches.
How does it tell you’re legitimate? Well, good content, and meaningful links on the site help a lot. But what we really need to do is start to persuade the search engines that your brand new website is a trustworthy one. We need to increase your Domain Authority …
What is Domain Authority and Why is it Important?
Domain authority is a score given to a web domain ranging from 0 to 100. The higher the score, the more reputable the site is deemed to be – and the higher it will rank in search queries. You can check your domain authority using this free tool from Moz: https://moz.com/domain-analysis
Here’s a snapshot of ours at the time of writing:
A new website has a domain authority of 0. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to increase that! And we’re going to tell you how.
3 Steps to increasing your Domain Authority
Step 1 – Build out Your Business Profile Online with these 3 directories
The single best thing you can do to kick start your SEO strategy is to create an online business profile and start getting reviews. Here’s how:
Create a Google Business Profile
Sign up for a google business profile – this is an absolute must do! You can find out how to set your business up here: https://support.google.com/business/answer/10514137?hl=en-GB
Use this as an opportunity – and set up products on the page which reflect what your business does – eg web design. Each product gives you an opportunity to include relevant key words. Make sure to link to your website!
Get Customer Reviews
Next up get some reviews on there – ask people to review your business. Even better, if those reviews talk about what you do, then this is a great boost for local search results.
These 2 simple things help tell Google (and other search engines) that your website and business is real and reputable. It’s a no-brainer for any new business.
Create a Bing Places Profile
Who uses bing anymore? Well, some people still do – and more importantly, having a Bing Places listing is going to help boost your rankings. You can create your Bing listing here: https://www.bingplaces.com/
Claim your free Yell.com listing
Yell is another place you need to add your business to. You can create your free listing with Yell here: https://www.yell.com/free-listing/. A Yell listing offers 2 great benefits:
- You can stuff your listing with loads of relevant SEO keywords and phrases
- You can do a scan to find out where you are listed here: https://www.yell.com/connectscan/ and once you’ve done that scan you’ll get a load more free listings ideas such as Cylex. Take your time and work your way through them – get listed on as many local listings as possible.
Step 2 – Build Your Backlinks
What are backlinks, I hear you ask? Well … these are links back to your website from other sites. Backlinks show search engines that your content is important. But …. there are a couple of caveats here:
- Remember it is quality over quantity when it comes to backlinks. A link to your site from a spammy site with a poor reputation reflects badly on you. A link from a highly trusted site, with a good domain authority, reflects well. Some of the ‘rankings juice’ from the linking site flows through to your site as a result.
- Building backlinks takes time and effort. This is not going to be an instant win.
As you can see from the image above, building backlinks (in this case to our site) takes time. But it will pay off.
How can I build backlinks?
Great question! And there’s more than one way. The first thing we like to do is ask who your competitors are. We can study their backlinks, and this might give you some ideas. It very much depends on your business.
Links from Listings or Blogs
If you run a holiday let, for instance, then looking at local accommodation listings sites might work for you – eg Visit Eden. However if you are in a different business then perhaps there are bloggers you could approach to write an article about you and link to your site.
Step 3 – Write Specialist Content
Another way to get your site ranking highly is by writing specific content for a particular topic. This page, as an example, aims to rank for SEO. That’s a highly competitive area so could be difficult. For your business you might be able to write technical articles or blog updates which may have the potential to rank highly. This is a fantastic way to build up content on your site, and you can then share your articles and try to get people to link back to them. Remember what we said at the start – the thing that matters most of all is content. Good content, well written, optimised for SEO, will always win.
Let’s recap on those 3 Simple Steps to improve your SEO
Firstly get your business listings online – and get those customer reviews! Secondly, build up your backlinks. Thirdly write high quality content.
I can’t do this on my own. Can you help with my SEO?
Yes we can! We offer a few support packages that can help you.
Firstly our ‘Performance Pack‘ at £80 per month includes monthly SEO reporting against agreed keywords as well as loads of other added benefits such as daily offsite backups.
If that’s not right for you then you can buy our SEO report for £120 per annum.
We also offer dedicated SEO support at an hourly rate. Typically we will recommend chunking this up into 3 hour blocks. And the first thing we do is to sit down with you and work our what you want to achieve. We don’t need to boil the ocean and change everything. We focus on one thing at a time, and continually measure progress.
If you’re interested in SEO support, then please get in touch today!
