If you own a business, it’s likely you’ve heard all about SEO, but what is it and why is it important for your website? SEO stands for search engine optimisation and is the process of optimising your website so it can rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs) so that you can increase the amount of organic traffic to your website.
When implemented correctly (either by yourself or experienced SEO consultant), SEO can pay dividends and can help you boost both your revenue and brand awareness.
Why is ranking high in Google important?
Google is the most widely used search engine around the globe, dominating other search engines like Bing! and Yahoo with over 8 billion searches every day. It’s one of the biggest areas of opportunity for marketers, and according to statistics websites that rank high on Google take around 33% of web traffic. Impressive, right? And that’s exactly why it’s so important to get your SEO strategy nailed from the start.
But what can you do to ensure you start seeing ranking changes? In this post we look at some of the top SEO tips for 2023.
Top Tips
- Improve your Technical SEO
One of the first things you should do as part of your SEO strategy is ensure that your website meets technical standards. This means taking the time to understand and improve your site loading speed, ensuring that you’re using relevant URLs and making sure your site has an SSL certificate installed.
In addition to this, you want to make sure your site is mobile-friendly, that your navigation is easy to follow, and that you have alt text on every image you use.
There are plenty of SEO audit tools available online for you to use, and while they can’t compare to a real SEO consultant, they can give you a good idea of what technical elements you need to work on to improve your SEO.
- Focus on E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness)
E-A-T is one of the many factors that Google uses to understand whether the content on a web page is valuable to readers and whether it should rank highly. While it’s not a ranking factor, it can impact your content’s rank. Confusing, we know.
In a nutshell, E-A-T guidelines are used by real human reviewers, who assess millions of web pages, what Google considers high quality content.
According to guidelines, content should:
- Inform users
- Be created by an expert
- Be posted on a trustworthy and credible site
- Be maintained regularly
But what does that mean for your site? It means that you need to create engaging, authoritative content that can be updated as and when needed. Some things to consider:
- Updating your ‘about me’ section of your website – this helps to build trust and confidence with your audience
- Work with freelance SEO consultants to create engaging, SEO-friendly content
- Make the purpose of your content clear
- Update and adjust your content every couple of months
- Link to other trustworthy websites or sources
- Incorporate Video
Adding video to your site can help with your SEO rankings. According to a recent survey, users are more likely to click a Google listing with video. If you have high quality video on your site, this can help Google’s algorithm to see your page as an authoritative source and this can help you to climb the rankings in SERPs.
- Deliver SEO friendly content
There’s no special guide to help you write unique content. But you can help your content to rank better for SEO with SEO-friendly content. By writing with SEO in mind, you can give search engines more insight to what your website is about. Search engines can use this to understand whether your page is relevant to a user’s search query. If it is relevant, search engines will likely rank it. To increase your chances of ranking higher on SERPs, you need to ensure that you:
- Target high quality keywords that users are looking for
- Understand your user’s search intent
- Optimise on-page SEO such as headers and title tags
When you approach content creation with SEO in mind, you can create content that:
- Achieves steady, organic traffic
- Gives visitors more information about your product or service so that they can convert into paying customers
- Attracts and engages new visitors
If you don’t optimise your content for SEO, people may never come across your page and there would be no point in your business existing.
- Don’t go after low quality keywords
Keywords are an incredibly important part of any SEO strategy so it’s important you get this right. You want to ensure that you’re using keywords or phrases that are related to your company’s niche or products and that they are targeting the user’s search intent throughout the buying journey.
It’s important to focus on keywords that are most relevant to your users. So rather than targeting ‘landscape architect’ you might focus on ‘best landscape architect in Kent. Targeting a geographical location will help you with your local SEO and this can turn into more leads and sales.
- Consider hiring an SEO consultant
If you’re unsure how to put together a great SEO strategy, an SEO consultant can help. An experienced consultant will bring their knowledge of SEO and digital marketing to help you with your campaign or long-term goals.
Conclusion
In 2023 you can’t ignore SEO. The success of your company depends on consumers selecting your company over the competition and SEO is one of the best ways to help you do that.
