5 SEO content basics for every website
The wonderful thing about Google is that it can be used to predict what people want.
If someone types in “cheese grater” there’s a good chance they either want to buy one, or they are interested in finding out more. Either way it’s a sales opportunity for your business.
Search Engine Optimisation – SEO – is all about making sure it is your website that appears in the main search results for the keywords and phrases that are essential to your business.
By main search results, I mean what are called the natural search results to the left of the Google page, not the paid-for adverts on the right of the page.
At first glance SEO seems to be difficult. But like most marketing, when you break it down into a series of small repeatable actions, it becomes an easy daily task that can be performed by someone in your business.
Publicity Heaven is not an SEO company. But in years of writing website content for clients and working with SEO consultants, the team has learned about five SEO basics:
Choose the right keywords: There’s no point optimising your website for “cheese graters” if only 10 people search for that term every month. At the same time, there’s no point trying to go for a generic term such as “jobs” that millions search for every month, unless you have a very well funded SEO operation that can beat the existing giant websites competing for that term. Small businesses are more likely to succeed using smaller search terms. You can see how many people search for any term on Google UK with this very handy tool.
Make your website relevant: If you are trying to attract traffic to the term “jacket potato”, ensure the content is about spuds and related foodstuffs (coleslaw, baked beans etc). Google’s mission is to be the most relevant search engine; it must have confidence that your website is actually about the subject it is attracting search traffic for.
Keep your website up-to-date: Both humans and Google like a website to be up-to-date. Google knows the last time you updated a page and places more importance on sites that are updated more regularly. And humans like the confidence of knowing the business behind the website is active! You wouldn’t send out a brochure with out of date information, so don’t allow it to sit on your website.
Keep adding content to your website: Google loves websites that regularly add new pages with relevant content. BBC News is one of the top websites in the UK: one of the reasons for this is that it adds several hundred new pages of content every day. You should be adding at least four or five new pages every month. If you don’t have time to do this, get a company to do it for you.
Build relevant links: While you can make a significant difference to your website’s performance in Google using the content tips above, you can make as much difference again by quality link building. This means getting links from websites with a high PageRank back to your website. If Google sees the phrase “jacket potato” on a website links to your site, it will decide your site probably is about jacket potatoes… especially if the page it is linking to has plenty of content about spuds. Make sure you pick high quality sites for links. Publicity Heaven uses a number of high quality newswire websites for Online PR which provide a significant benefit quickly. And don’t be tempted to link back to the website, as this removes the benefit you get from the link into your website. Links only have a benefit one way so make sure it is to your website.
