SEO Sir?
And now for a shameless plug…
Bluehoop are specialists in getting your website to the top of the first page in Google. We’ve got a great track record of success in helping our clients make money by moving their websites from the back alleys to the ‘internet high-street’. We offer a first class, affordable service for all sizes of business. Our clients range from start-ups with a limited budget to multi-million pound turnover businesses. We’d love to help your business succeed by driving qualified potential clients and customers to your website. Read on for a quick run-down of just what it takes to get your website the #1 slot in Google.
Keyword research – this has got to be the first step.
It may well be that you think you’ve got a good idea about what your potential clients or customers are searching for. It may well also be that the keywords you think they’re searching for are wrong. It’s really important to do a thorough, methodical check of exactly which keywords your potential clients are typing into the box on the Google search page. Happily, Google have given us the tools to do this. You can do it too. If you do a search in Google for ‘keyword tool’, click on the top entry and you’ll get through to the Google keyword research tool. Go on – try it. Key in the top box the search term you think your customers will search for. Once you’ve done that, make sure that the advanced options are set to the United Kingdom and press return. THEN (and this is IMPORTANT) check that the search options on the left hand column are set to ‘exact’ – if they’re not you’ll get an inaccurate record. Then check on the ‘local’ searches column to see an average monthly figure of the searches made against certain keywords. The keywords you chose will be there, along with other suggestions from Google. You may be surprised about what you thought your customers were searching for!
Keyword links
Getting links from other sites that Google sees as an authority in your particular niche is seen as being very important to Search Engine Optimisation. The quality and relevance of the content on your website is very important as well, but you’ve GOT to get links from other sites to do a proper Search Engine Optimisation campaign. Even better than a straight link back is a link where the link ‘anchor’ text (often in blue and underlined – the bit you click on) is your actual keyword or key phrase. Like this one for instance womens waterproof jackets The owners of the website that this link goes to want to rank well in Google for the term ‘womens waterproof jackets’ so we’ve been getting links from other sites using this method and over time Google will see that there are a mass of links coming in from appropriate sites and will rank them highly for it.
Using Articles to Improve your Website’s Ranking
As I’ve written about in another post – writing articles (and blogging) is a great way to drive traffic to your site. Not only does Google LOVE fresh content on websites, you also have the opportunity for others to comment on your blog or article post (see the form below and comment on this article if you like!). That way, your users are creating your content for you, and updating pages. Google also loves recently created content.
Researching your Competitors
This is another hugely important area that a lot of people overlook. Take a very good look at your competitors’ websites. Take a look at the ‘title tags’ (the bit that comes up at the top of the browser bar). On this page you’re reading at the moment it is ‘Bluehoop SEO Leeds | SEO Sir?’. This is probably the first thing a competitor would do with their keyword once they’ve decided upon it. It’ll be popped in as a title tag somewhere on their website. Also, if the competitor is doing well in the search rankings, what is it that they’re doing differently than you? The following list of questions will get you started on understanding what it is that makes for good Search Engine Optimisation.
What does your competitors website say about them? Does their site look professional and structurally well thought out? Is it comprehensive in terms of its content? Is the content engaging and original, or unimaginative and dull? Is it updated regularly with fresh content? Do all the pages get updated, or just the blog, news, products sections? Has the site been recently redesigned? Is there a mobile version? Do they engage with social media? Do they have a newsletter? Do partners and clients talk about them online? Do they take part in online discussions? If so, then about what?
You could go on forever asking questions about your competitors, but if you come away with just a few good points about what makes them rank better than you in the search engines, then your time hasn’t been wasted.