SEO can seem extremely daunting, but don’t let it bamboozle you – there are some really easy tips to master that will make the world of difference to your website, and we’ve got five of them right here.
What is SEO?
Firstly, a quick recap – SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s essentially making your website as appealing as possible to Google, so that it recommends your site to people who are searching.
Optimizing your page simply helps Google (or any other search engine, but Google is the giant we attempt to appease the most) understand what your site is about, and which of its users should find you. The better you help those users, the more Google will trust you, and the more it will recommend your content.
So many elements feed into SEO, from the content itself to how you present the page, from the images to the links you use, but we’ve compiled five tips to get you started.
Why is SEO important?
Well, the old joke goes that if you want to hide something, put it on page 2 of Google – which is why embracing some simple SEO tips that place your page higher in the search rankings will bring far more people to your website.
1. Prioritize Quality over Quantity
You might think the best way for Google to notice you is to give it as much information as possible, using hundreds of quickly made pages. Once upon a time, you could simply copy and paste your keyword a hundred times into a page and change the color of it so it was harder to see (called Keyword Stuffing), but Google is far more clever than that nowadays.
Instead, Google prioritizes good content, and it uses E-E-A-T to deem it good or bad. E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, and it’s one of the metrics used by it to understand if sending people to your site is a good idea or not. If you write valuable content, demonstrating your experience and expertise, extolling trustworthiness and establishing yourself as an authority, you will find your content ranking highly on Google. Add in a few simple things to make it easy for Google to read — headings, captions, other formatting — and you’ll benefit.
Ultimately, it is far better to have a few great pieces of content in a blog for your business that Google can read well, than hundreds of wasted pages written by AI with potentially inaccurate information. This goes the same for new vs old – updating old pieces is preferred over writing new, similar pieces. Write something you’d want to read, and then focus on helping Google to understand it.
2. Good Tools make SEO Easy
SEO is such a vital part of business strategy in the modern world that there are plenty of options out there to help you find what you need to know. There’s a myth that these cost a lot of money – and admittedly, some do, SEMRush is a phenomenal tool but it’s not cheap for a small business — but everything from Ahrefs (which has a free and very useful keyword tool to figure out long tail keywords or article subheadings) to SimilarWeb can give you great information, keywords, and starting points.
An underrated tool is Grammarly. The free version will check your spelling and grammar, but with an understanding of your tone, and can be used in a browser. Typo-free content is easier to read than error-ridden content, and as such, Google will like it more.
3. Long-Tail Keywords Could be the Answer to Ranking on Google
Long-tail keywords are one of the best ways to rank on Google, when the competition is high. For example, you may struggle to rank for Board Games amongst the giants of toys like Hasbro, Amazon, or the like – but you may find success in a page titled “Board Games for Couples”. You may not rank for Pool Cleaning, but you could certainly try ranking for Pool Cleaning in Arizona. Being more specific in the pages you’re targeting, and the keywords you use as a result, means Google knows you can answer the searcher’s request. Plus, the more helpful your page is, the more Google will trust you for your later pages too. The aforementioned Ahrefs is a great free way to find these, as is Google’s own Keyword Planner.
4. Drive Traffic and Engagement outside of Google
Whilst writing a post and sitting back for Google to send every customer your way would be dreamy, you can’t always expect Google to do the heavy lifting. If you can drive traffic to your website yourself, be it through social media, word of mouth, or other means, you absolutely should – a well-visited site will become a trusted one, and if nothing else people may return to your site as a result.
The golden days of Buzzfeed are a great example of how this works so well, as you may not have been googling “The ultimate Taylor Swift song rankings”, but if you see it on your social feed, you may click on it anyway. Enough visits, and Google begins to trust that your website is a worthy destination to send its searchers to.
While you’re looking for new ways to get traffic to your site that doesn’t directly involve Google, try to obtain backlinks. Google loves when other websites link to your site, as it demonstrates your authority and helps it understand your site better. If you can gain these from trusted websites, you benefit from more trust from Google yourself.
5. Be Consistent for SEO
By far the hardest part of SEO, but one that is vital, is consistency. Writing and producing your content should be part of your marketing plan, and most SEO strategies will take 6 months before you start seeing tangible results. Writing a ton of content in the first month, and then nothing thereafter, won’t do you any favors. Consistent, useful, good content over a period of time will build your trust with the search engine gods, and there’s no better day to start that than today.
How can we help?
Anthem Communications exists to help your small business — whether it be with a long-term SEO strategy, website design, or branding — we’re here to help. Reach out to us today to see how we can be a partner in driving traffic (and profit) to you!
