This SEO strategy will improve your website’s rank on Google – guaranteed!

Today I’ll show you how to develop and implement an SEO strategy that will improve your website’s rank – guaranteed.

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is a process we provide as a service. SEO is basically the process of optimising your business website design to be found on page 1 on Google for services and products you sell.

People who do not know about your business or the services or products you provide, will search terms they are looking for. These typically include the SERVICE + LOCATION.

These search results appear in the organic listings on Google.

Google Ads – Listing at the top are ads.

Google My Business – The next group of listings are local listings displayed next to a map – these are Google My Business listings.

SEO – Below those are the organic listings. Website’s listed in the organic listings for a search term are displayed on page one because Google thinks they are most relevant.

How does Google evaluate your website’s SEO?

Google analyses various factors when it comes to deciding which websites get listed on page one. Some factors we can control and some we can’t. Here are a few:

• The quality of written content.
• The amount of written content and pages.
• Internal & external links.
• Images.
• Page content structure including H tags
• Metadata titles, descriptions and keywords.
• Page load speed time.
• Responsive design
• The website design aesthetic. Is your site design to funnel visitors into taking action?

Should you care about SEO?

When your website is at the top of page one, you will enjoy free targeted traffic from the search engines.

Traffic from search engines is highly desired because people searching have ‘buyers intent’ and are in a purchasing frame of mind when searching for what they need. They are in the market to buy when they search for a product or service your business provides. So, the conversion process to a lead or sale from search engine traffic is often a lot higher than other forms of interruptive styles of advertising.

Does it matter if your website isn’t on page one?

Yes. 75% of searchers never look past the first page of Google’s results. In other words, your potential customer base shrinks by 75% if you don’t make it to the first page of search results for keywords that are relevant to your business.

If you do make it to page one, your position within the top 10 also affects your click-through rate. For example, the average click-through rate for a spot in position one is 43.32%. This drops to 37.36% for position two and goes on to decrease further until it reaches 3.11% at position 10.

That’s why your business should invest time and resources into not just making it onto the first page, but also gaining a high position on that first page.

Location, location, location

As mentioned above most people want to do business with other businesses near to them. People often say to me ‘oh, you’re a web designer, you can work anywhere in the world’. Yes, that is true, but I have found that most clients prefer to do business with other real businesses located near to them. I think the perception is that if you are close to them it provides an element of trust and accountability.

Which keyword phrases should you target?

For the purpose let’s use Wood Craft Flooring, a Geelong flooring business as our example.

This Geelong flooring business provides:
• Flooring Installation
• Engineered Wood Flooring
• Laminate Flooring
• Etc.

Keyword Mapping

We need to search and organise keywords into groups for each page. This process is called keyword mapping. A keyword map helps you assign keyword groups to particular pages so we know which pages to point backlinks to.

For the home page you might focus on the following keywords:

1. Complete flooring solutions Geelong
2. Flooring Geelong
3. Flooring solutions Geelong
4. Flooring installation Geelong
5. Flooring specialists Geelong
6. Flooring supplies near me
8. Flooring companies Geelong
10. Flooring shops Geelong

Repeat the process for all of the pages on your website.

You can research keywords by simply Googling and looking at your competitors web pages or you can use free tools such as SEMRush or WordStream word word tool. Google has it’s own keyword planner but you need an active Google Ads Account to access it.

Once you have your keyword list, you can then write, structure and optimise your web pages accordingly.

Optimise your web pages for Google

It’s important you structure your web page content and every web page should have its content structured with the following hierarchy.

• H1 – Heading 1 – This should contain the primary keyword phrase for the page.
• H2 – Heading 2 – Break up content into readable sections. Title these sections with H2 and use variations of your keywords within these titles.
• Images – Ensure images are sized and named correctly before uploading. Once uploaded add the Title, Alt Text and Description of the image so Google understands what it is.
• Internal Links – Create a web of internal links, linking keyword phrases to other relevant pages on your site. This helps visitors navigate to content and improves your SEO.
• External Links – Include the odd external link for reference.
• Content – Try write 600 words per page and include your researched keywords.
• Metadata – Metadata provides the summary title, description and focus keyword Google uses to understand what you page is about. This content is also shown on Google’s result page.
• Blogging – Blogging allows you to add new content to your website on a frequent basis. This keeps Google’s search bots and people visiting your website.

Rank Math is an excellent plugin that provides a thorough checklist you can go through when optimising your pages. Ideally you want to reach 80/100 to get a green light.

Off-page SEO Optimisation

Off page SEO optimisation is the process of creating backlinks to your website from other platforms. These are keyword phrases in articles made into links pointing to relevant pages on your website.

You’ll remember we talked about keyword mapping. As an example we may have an article talking about floor installation. The words ‘floor installation Geelong’ would link and map to the Flooring Installation page on the website. This is an example of a backlink.

Backlinks can come from:
• Other peoples websites
• Editorial backlinks
• Blogs
• Comments
• Business directories
• Social media
• Google search results of course!

Repurposing content

Make your content go further by repurposing it. We want people to visit our website. When we repurpose the content on other platforms, only provide a snippet of the article. Include a read more link on a keyword phrase back to your website for visitors who want to read more. Google sees lots of people from different IP addresses clicking links for keyword phrases leading to your website. Google views these backlinks as endorsements and popularity for keyword phrases you are targeting. 

Bullet points in content can often be elaborated on and turned into more articles. You can even make short videos on bullet points and post to Youtube and Instagram.

Re-post your content on:
1. Facebook
2. Instagram
3. LinkedIn
4. YouTube
5. Google My Business
6. Forums
7. Comments
8. HTML Newsletters.

How will I know SEO is working for my site?

You will know SEO is successful when your optimised website is ranking well on Google for various keyword phrases. This should mean an increase in free traffic back to your website.

SEO Geelong – SEO Packages

If doing this work seems overwhelming and time consuming, it’s because it is. We provide a range of  SEO Packages that apply all of the techniques listed above and more. Simply choose how many keyword phrases you want to target and we’ll do the rest!