If you’ve spent any time browsing business forums, then you’re likely to have heard about the importance of SEO. But for those who aren’t tech-savvy, it can be difficult to get your head around the concept. Here’s a beginner’s explanation, and five simple ways you can boost your website’s presence on search engine results pages (SERPs).
So, what is search engine optimisation?
Put simply, search engine optimisation refers to the methods you can use to improve the visibility of your website on search engines such as Google. The higher you can appear on results pages when potential customers search for companies in your industry, the more visitors you’ll attract, and the more likely you are to convert them into customers.
It’s little wonder why the SEO industry was valued at $65 billion last year – a figure that’s set to rise with increased competition and changing industry practices.
Download an SEO plugin
There’s little point in spending valuable working hours getting your head around SEO when a WordPress plugin can do it all for you. Plugins like Yoast SEO were designed for beginners, and allow you to input keywords you’d like to rank for when writing new blog posts and pages. Little needs to be done to configure the plugin – just navigate to the plugins section of your WordPress Dashboard and follow the one-click install.
Add links to your posts
Links are perhaps the most important part of SEO, so use them to your advantage. In your blog posts, add links back to services pages on your website, and ask your customers and business contacts to link back to your website from theirs. The more links you can get to your website, the higher your web pages will rank.
Give your images some love
For search engines to index your images, they need information. It’s simple to add a brief description to each of your images in its alt tag by using the WordPress image editor, or by following this simple tutorial. Also make sure that your images are named correctly – file names like companydog.jpg are much more likely to rank than image1.jpg.
Be consistent with your keywords
Keywords are the words or phrases you’d like to rank for on search engines – a local baker may want to rank for ‘cupcakes north east’, while a taxi firm may opt for ‘Durham taxi’. After choosing your keywords, be consistent – use them in your website’s copy and blog posts, and consider tracking your keywords using a tool like SEMrush or RankScanner.
Blog regularly
We’ve already shared reasons why businesses should blog regularly. One of the biggest benefits is improving your website’s search engine optimisation. Regular, high-quality content gives you opportunities to attract organic traffic and offers a chance to add some of your keywords into your copy. However, it’s important to write naturally; don’t focus on search engines when writing your copy – instead, try to weave in keywords naturally.
If you implement some of these simple SEO tactics, your traffic from search engines will increase. Whatever you choose to do, remember to be patient – it takes time for search engines to crawl your website and there are no shortcuts to SEO success.
At JAK, we offer a bespoke SEO service to help you boost your website’s organic traffic and convert visitors into leads. To find out more, email sales@jakinc.uk, call us on 0191 3882 698 or click here to visit our website.