Last Updated on January 8, 2023 by Faiza Murtaza
Search engine optimisation is an ever changing prospect. An SEOs work is never done, with Google and other search engines continually monitoring things such as search intent, new technology and more to ensure the end user are getting the optimum experience.
For your website, that means continual evaluation and tweaks where required to ensure your site is both ranking for the keywords you want, and also converting.
To help you on your way this year, we’ve put together this handy guide on the key elements of your website to begin focusing on…
Keywords
Keywords are the most integral part of any SEO strategy. If you don’t know what keywords you wish to/should be ranking for, then you aren’t going to be maximising the business opportunities available to you.
While you may already have some keywords in mind that you’d like to rank for, a good place to start is to see what your competitors are ranking for. This could be across both a local and national/international scale, depending on the type of business you are. For example a bicycle store in Manchester, is going to want to rank for “bicycles in Manchester”, while if it also sells bicycles online, then you’d also want to be ranking for “buy bicycles online”.
Explore what your competitors are currently doing, and if your site is already up-and-running, find the gaps that you’re not ranking for.
Content
Then you need to explore the type of content that will get you ranking for such keywords. You should be analysing competitors pages, as well as other pages that appear in the search engine. What you should be then looking for is aspects such as:
- Length of content on page
- Titles within the text (H1s, H2s, etc.)
- Imagery
- Interactivity (graphics etc)
- Videos
- Textual features (bullet points, headings, FAQs)
- Keyword integration
- Content topics and subject matter
From there you’ll be able to spot trends which you can then identify as the features and aspects of a page that Google is looking for. Then it’s all about tailoring your own content accordingly.
It’s so important to get your content right and ensure that the requirements Google is looking for are met. If you don’t have those skills in-house, agencies and freelance copywriters are available to take on the work, the latter of which can be hired for relatively low cost.
Internal and External Links
Linking is a massive part of how Google ranks pages. Google will look for authority in a site, and links pointing to that page, both internally and from external sites will do that.
For internal linking, you should be doing this to your main pages across your website. Your on-page copy can aid with this, hyperlinking other relevant pages where relevant, while blog content is also perfect for applying internal links.
Externally is where it gets a little more difficult. In order to earn links to your page from other websites you need to ensure your page is a useful resource and also looks the part.
A well-designed site is a big part of that, and you’ll find many website builders highlighting their success stories on how they’ve helped improve rankings and conversions through the design of a site.
Unique and interesting data will also help achieve this, with many agencies now applying digital PR strategies to aid link building to key pages.
On-site technical fixes
A full audit of your site can also be a useful starting point. Again, this is something many agencies or SEO experts can help with, and will analyse the performance of things such as site speed, responsiveness and other key elements as part of Google’s Core Web Vitals, while things such as broken links and readability of pages would also be looked at, as high-quality content will always be prioritised by the search engine.
Read more: 5 Ways to Boost Business in 2022
