So, you’ve got a new or existing website for your business, but you’ve never done any SEO. How do you go about doing this from scratch? And what sort of time will you have to invest in it? Well, if you’re willing to do this yourself, here are 10 SEO factors that you can implement on your website:
1. Download An SEO Plugin On Your CMS
An SEO plugin can be your best friend. It will give you great insights into how to improve your website’s SEO, from giving indications of whether your page titles or meta descriptions are too long, to other factors that may be holding your website back.
2. Carry Out Keyword Research & Competitor Research
Keyword research is extremely important. It will give you a portfolio of terms to optimise your website around, leading to higher organic traffic. It’s also important to carry out competitor research to see what keywords they are targeting. Once you know this, you will be able to do it better and rank higher than them in SERPs.
3. Page Titles & Meta Descriptions
Once you’ve completed your keyword research, you can insert them into page titles and meta descriptions. This gives Google a clear indication of what each page should rank for. Remember that page titles should not exceed 60 characters, and meta descriptions shouldn’t exceed 160 characters. If they do, anything after these limits will not be seen in results.
4. Re-write URLs
URLs are also a great place to put keywords. If your page focuses on a particular service or product, make sure that this is in the URL. So, for example, if you offer waste management services in Surrey, your URL should be “.co.uk/waste-management-services-surrey”.
5. H1, H2s & H3s
Headings not only give the user a clear indication of what they’re going to be reading about on the page, they also give you another opportunity to put in keywords to make sure Google is ranking that page for the correct keyword.
6. Optimise & Compress Images
Large images can increase page load times, which is likely going to affect bounce rate. You should ensure that most images don’t exceed 100kb. If they do, ensure they are only on lower level pages that don’t receive a lot of traffic.
7. Improve Site Speed
Site speed is a factor in how Google ranks websites online. If you have a slow site speed, users won’t have a very good experience, and so will leave the site. Google picks up on these signals and penalises your site for it. By reducing images and the size of videos, you can improve site speed and, by extension, your website’s position in SERPs.
8. Increase Word Count
Pages with higher word count have for the most part been given better positions in SERPs, as these will likely give the best user experience. Ensure that your pages have a word count of at least 500 words or more. This will be a positive signal to Google and will improve your website overall.
9. Set Up & Optimise A Google My Business Account
Setting up a Google My Business page is simple and easy to do. It gives your company a profile when users search for your brand name and gives all relevant information including your phone number, location, opening hours, and the reviews that you’ve received. This is an extra trust factor for users.
10. Build Local Links On High Authority Directories
Building local links on local directories is a free and easy way to grow your website’s backlink profile. These positive mentions of your brand will give a signal to Google that you should be ranked higher than other competitors with fewer links. There are many lists online which show online directories for each location, so spend a day or two going through each and submitting your website.
