Search Engine Optimisation – What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is about making your website and blog ‘search engine friendly’. It is about ensuring that the content (all the words!) aids the way a search engine works and helps to get your website and blog higher up the results page.
Where to start with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?
How does a search engine work?
I think the most important thing when it comes to search engine optimisation (SEO) is to understand how a search engine works. .
In very basic terms, search engines send out little ‘crawlers’ or ‘spiders’ (technically speaking, not literally!) which ‘read’ websites. Primarily, they ‘read’ the html text (your main body of copy), the URLs (http://www.dsdsdd …etc),alt text (the writing that appears if you hover over an image, for example) and meta data (behind the scene information!).
Search engines are also getting better at ‘watching’ video content and ‘looking’ at images too. All to assess what a certain website, webpage and section of a page is about.
All this information is collected in a huge database. Then, when you type in a search term, a list of results are given, based on the data gathered by the crawlers. …as the most incredible speed.
As an example, when I search ‘copywriting’ on Google (other search engines are available!), it reliably informs me that ‘about 21,300,000 results were found in 0.65 second’. To find the results, and importantly, to rank them and decide which 10 or so websites make page one, the search engine looks for webpages in its database, which contains the search terms, and then identifies how popular a website is, based on a variety of things. One, in particular, is how often a link to a website is put on other websites. Google has it’s own specific set of guidelines based around E-A-T – expertise, authority and trustworthiness.
In short, a search engine looks for expertise, relevance and popularity to help return the results.
Ok so that’s the technical bit – now let me get back to words and writing! The bit I like most!
How can you ‘do’ search engine optimisation (SEO)?
To optimize your website or blog, the easiest thing to start with is to list all of the things a client would type in to the search engine to find you. Firstly, think obvious, i.e. the name of your business, but then try to think outside of the box.
—– EXAMPLE —–
If you are a hairdresser, start your keywords list with words such as ‘hairdresser’, ‘hairstylist’; then perhaps what you do, ‘haircuts’, ‘trim’, ‘colour’ and your location ‘in Overton’, ‘near Basingstoke,’ ‘in North Hampshire’.
More and more people now search with whole phrases, often called ‘long-tail keywords’, so next think about these. For example, ‘local mobile hairdresser in Overton’ or ‘can I have my haircut in the evening?’ or ‘qualified hairstylist near Basingstoke’. These are also easier to rank for because they are more specific.
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The next piece of advice is kind of obvious – include these keywords on your website. Include them in particular on the homepage, in URLs, subtitles, in blog titles and opening paragraphs! However, I will put an immediate rider on this advice – DO NOT DO THIS AT THE EXPENSE OF WELL-WRITTEN, CLEAR COPY!
It is no use getting your website higher up the search engine ranking, only for potential clients to find your website is completely incomprehensible because you have repeated the same keyword every second line! You’ll lose more clients this way than being on page 2 of the results!
As well as keywords and their placement, ideally you want to get links from other webpages to your page. In ‘search engine world’, this shows your website is a popular! So, if you know a local business or community sites that you can advertise on or will link to your site by request, then do get in touch with them. Offering to guest blog works well too.
Finally, remember that for most small businesses it is the business names itself that is most important to be ‘found via’. So focus on this as a starting point – do you rank well for your own business name?
Learn more in this video:
If you are keen to understand SEO a little more, take a little look at this cartoon. It explains SEO in a rather amusing way: https://www.redevolution.com/seo-explained – it really helped me and you’ve got to love a ‘SEO superhero’!
Don’t get bogged down by SEO
I hope this helps as short introduction to search engine optimisation. However, if you have any questions, please do ask in the comments. No question is too small or too silly!
Importantly, remember that search engines generally work in weird and mysterious ways. They are updating and changing their algorithms all of the time and, however, wonderful your SEO is, you will never beat the company who has paid thousands of pounds to be at the top!
Furthermore, a search engine isn’t the only way people will find your website. You will share your website address, link to it from social media profile, include it in emails and even have it on your business card, for example.
If you still find SEO utterly baffling, then book a discovery call today and let’s discuss ways to help you optimise your website: