July/Aug 2019
USEBETTE OF RTECH BUSINOLOGY N ESS
So that’s step one, but there are number of additional things you can do to optimise your website from a technical perspective, so that it has the best chance of reaching its target audience organically, and by that I mean for free. (Warning, there’s a lot of techy, SEO-related vocab coming up!):
7.
ADD META DESCRIPTIONS – these are short sentences that describe what the page is about. This enables you to include longer phrases that your audience might be searching for, which search engines will pick up on.
8.
OPTIMISE YOUR COPY – make sure your keywords are included in the first 100 words of the copy on your page. And make sure you have at least 100 words per page (but 500 is ideal). Check for duplicate content, which can harm your site, here: https://www.seoreviewtools.com/duplicatecontent-checker/ Of course, you can’t simply ‘stuff’ keywords into the copy and hope for the best – the search engines can sus that. Your copy also has to match the user’s expectations – it must answer their typical questions and be readable and engaging. This increases the time people spend on your site, which reduces the ‘bounce’ rate and improves your ranking.
9.
ADD LINKS – use external and internal links within your content - this helps to show that your site is well-referenced and trustworthy. While you're there, make sure there aren't any broken links on your site. These will impact your rankings too.
Tips for optimisation 1.
SET UP GOOGLE ANALYTICS – this will enable you to see how many people visit your site, which pages they’re visiting and how long they spend on each one.
2.
SET UP GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE – this shows you how search engines are viewing your site, from mobile site performance, to traffic queries.
3.
SUBMIT A SITEMAP – sitemaps are important because they tell search engines where to find the content on your site.
4.
CARRY OUT KEYWORD RESEARCH – this will give you a list of words and phrases your target audience are actually searching for, and how likely it is you’ll be able to ‘rank’ for them. This insight can help you to optimise your website and inform your wider marketing strategy.
5.
WRITE SHORT, DESCRIPTIVE URLS – include your keyword in the page URL and make sure they're short and snappy.
6.
ADD TITLE TAGS AND HEADERS - make sure your keywords are included in the title of your page as well as your H1 and H2 headers (your main and sub headers).
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10. OPTIMISE IMAGES – make sure your images are named using your keyword and make sure your images have an 'alt tag' – this also helps search engines to rank your site. 11. ADD A GOOGLE MY BUSINESS LISTING – this lets you manage how your business appears on Google and allows you to invite customers to add reviews – another tick in the box for search engines.
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