Basic search engine optimisation is fundamental to the success of any website. Yet most small businesses do not fully understand how Search Engine Optimisation works. A well-planned and executed SEO campaign positions your website properly so that buyers can find it at the most critical points in the purchasing process, or whenever they need the information you offer.
Skipping SEO basics and spending all of your money and time on social media is tantamount to not brushing your teeth but buying whitening strips. Without solid, foundational SEO, you cannot grow a website sustainably.
But what exactly are search engines like Google looking for? How should you build your website so that it pleases your visitors as well as Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines? And even more importantly, how will SEO drive your profitability?
SEO Basics:
What Search Engines Want
The goal of SEO is not to cheat the search engines. Its purpose is:
• To create a seamless experience for the user, and
• To let the search engines know your intentions so that they can recommend your site for searches that are relevant to it.
Search engines are working day and night to improve their algorithms so that they can refer the most relevant websites and content to the users. How do search engines determine relevancy? They look at four main factors:
• Content – This refers to the theme and the text on the page, plus the descriptions and titles.
• User Experience – Do users find it easy to navigate around the site, or do they tend to leave it immediately? Is your site safe and free from viruses and malware?
• Performance – This refers to how fast your website loads and if it works as it should.
• Authority – If your website’s content is good enough, other authoritative sites will use it as a reference and link to it. The more high-quality links you get, the more authoritative your site appears to be.
Before you roll out your SEO campaign, sit down and figure out what your goals are. What is a ‘conversion’ for your website? Is it a purchase, a click on an ad, or people giving you their email address? When you know what your ultimate goal is, it’s much easier to plan an SEO stategy.
What Search Engines Do Not Want
Shady tactics won’t work. Search engines—especially Google—hate it when you try to trick them. Avoid doing the following, as they will only hurt your website in the long run:
• Keyword stuffing – Don’t overuse keywords on your content! A density of about 2% should be enough.
• Poor user experience – Your goal should be to make it easy for the user to get around your site. Putting up too many ads and giving people the run-around will increase your site’s bounce rate. If 80% or more of your visitors tend to leave your site within a few seconds of arriving, something is wrong—and search engines will notice.
• Buying links – Search engines are getting smarter and can now tell if you truly earned the link or simply bought it. Be warned.
Going Beyond Basic SEO
Depending on your goal, it might make sense to build rich media content such as videos. It is often easier to push a video to the top of the search engine results pages than to improve the rank of a plain text page.
Be sure to optimize non-text content like videos and images, too. If you insist on using Flash or PDFs, be sure to comply with the latest best practices to ensure that search engines can crawl your content and credit your site.
Go beyond optimizing for desktops. Focus on tablet and mobile optimization, as more and more people now access the web on these devices.
Finally, optimize for other channels. Keyword strategy should extend to other platforms like your Facebook page, Twitter, Email, and even LinkedIn page. Using consistent keyword phrases throughout these platforms can boost your branding campaign while also training users to use the specific phrases you are optimizing for.
Always keep your SEO campaign legitimate. Always follow the best practices prescribed by Google and other search engines. Take care of your SEO basics so you can build a strong foundation and fully maximize your website’s revenue opportunities.
