SEO Tips – How To Get A Good Google Ranking

SEO is an ongoing investment, it’s not something that you can do today and not look at again for a few months. It can take some time, but the value it adds to your organic search ranking is invaluable.   

Keywords

Research and brainstorm the keywords that you’ll need to include throughout your site, in titles, meta descriptions and content pieces such as blog posts. Google has a great keyword planner on AdWords that shows you what people are searching for.

Take a step back and think about what your customers might be searching for, try searching for things yourself and seeing what comes up and use this as the basis for your keyword list.

Page Titles and Meta Descriptions

Once you’ve identified your keywords, you need to use them in your page titles, in a natural way so there’s no obvious keyword stuffing. Make sure the title is relevant to the content on the page, definitely don’t add irrelevant keywords into the title just to get a click through to your site.

While meta descriptions don’t directly affect SEO, they do help with ensuring that people click on your site. This in turn shows Google that your page is relevant and should be more highly ranked.

Page Content

For us, this is the crucial one.

Having new and edited content on your site will show Google that your website is changing and relevant. Add your keywords into the content on each page, but again be careful to do this in a relevant, natural way. Google will penalise keyword stuffing and this will affect your ranking.

Make sure your keywords are also used in your header tags (H1, H2, H3 etc) and in the name, alt text and description for the images you select for the page.

Social Media and Business Listings

Getting your business noticed doesn’t just stop with your website. Make sure your keywords are used in your social media posts and bios, and in any business listings you have. Sites such as yell.com are highly ranked and so make sure you’re listed.

Inbound Links

Inbound links have a bad reputation but are crucial for your SEO. The links must be from relevant, credible sites as they help Google decide if your site is relevant and credible. Be careful who lists your website as it can also have a negative effect on your SEO if a dodgy website links back to you.

Things To Consider

While the basics listed above will help you get started with SEO, there are some additional things that you need to consider that will help list your site well:

• Mobile: your site must be responsive, and not just from a customer experience point of view. Google will look favourably on a site that is responsive and can be clicked through from mobile searches.
• Page load speed: If your site takes too long to load, Google will take this into account as it won’t be giving users a good experience.
• HTTPS: It has been discovered that HTTPS sites list more frequently on the first page of Google than those that start HTTP. You can find out more here.
• Voice Search: Make sure that your content is keyword rich (but remember to be natural!) so when people use devices such as Alexa, Google Home, Ok Google or Siri your site is listed.
• FAQs: Consider having an FAQ page that asks (and answers) the questions your customers are asking, e.g. ‘How do I get a job in finance?’ or ‘Which graduate schemes are the best?’. If these questions are asked (via voice or traditional search) Google will trawl websites to find an answer to show/read out. 

So as we said SEO may feel like a dark art, but by making these small changes you’re well on your way to helping Google find and list your site in relevant searches.

Get In Touch

If you’re thinking of getting a new website then why not get in touch with us! We’re happy to discuss everything from your project, to the wizardry magic of Google’s algorithm and more!