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SEO and How to Optimise it for your Business 

SEO and How to Optimise it for your Business 

by | Nov 25, 2021 | Digital Marketing

Let me guess, you want your website to be easily found by customers and don’t want to spend time creating a stunning website if no one can see it, we get it! Have you heard of SEO and how to optimise it for your business?

With the seemingly infinite amount of content on the internet, it can be overwhelming knowing how to start. I mean, what is SEO anyway?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the way you can help customers to find your site through search engines. By improving and optimising your SEO you can drive more traffic to your website and therefore generate more sales. 

1. Use the right keywords 

Firstly, you need to know what your customers are searching for. Are your customers more likely to use formal or informal word/phrases? You need your website to use the same language as your potential searchers. 

Use keyword search tools to research what keywords to use for your business (check out our favourite here). If you input one keyword, keyword tools can show you the amount the term is searched, its SEO difficulty and a list of other similar keywords.  

The information you find can be used to create keywords lists. If you are promoting different products and services, then you can create a list for each to optimise each page most effectively. 

Common mistakes: 

  • Only doing keyword research once 
  • Targeting keywords that are too competitive 
  • Forgetting to update and expand your keyword list. 

Once you have found your keywords, you need to know where to use them: 

  • Title 
  • URL 
  • Throughout the page text 
  • Image alt text 

Link building is when you acquire hyperlinks to your website from other websites. A hyperlink is a word, image or phrase that you click on to travel to a different section of the current document or to a new document.  

Increasing your link building between websites is a great way to build web authority and increase your chances of ranking higher. 

Gaining links organically is ideal, you can encourage this by making your website link-worthy with useful information and interesting products/services which could be featured in a blog.  

You can also build links to your site by asking website owners to carry your link on their site in exchange for you to do the same. Remember, quality over quantity. Links from reputable directories, website and educational websites will be more useful than links from untrustworthy blogs and sketchy websites. 

3. Ensure your website is user-friendly 

Making your website user-friendly will, of course, help your users have the best experience possible but it will also improve your SEO and Google Rankings. 

Site speed is confirmed to affect your SEO, just imagine the impact it could have on your user’s experience! With the majority of websites available with no load time, if your website is slow then it can cause users to bounce out. User behaviour on your site sends signals to search engines which then can impact your ranking. 

Google wants its users to be happy and understand that load speed can have a major impact on user satisfaction. Google’s method to ranking includes using Core Web Vitals; these assess your websites loading time, visual stability and interactivity and the results of this influence your ranking. 

The faster your site speed, the higher your ranking. Simple. 

4. Look at your content length 

How long your content is can affect your SEO and your ranking. Blog posts should contain at least 300 words in order to rank well on search engines but research shows that the ideal length for a blog post is 1,600 words.  

You may be wondering; how do I know how long MY content should be? An easy way to do this is to Google your main keyword and look at the top 10 results on Google. Do these contain more than 1,600 words? If they do then yours should too, if not then look at the average length of other similar high-ranking content. 

Don’t forget, quality over quantity! 

5. Optimise your on-page SEO 

On-page SEO is the way in which you optimise your website content for search engines. Some examples of on-page SEO are headings, slugs, meta descriptions and internal links. 

Here are some top tips to get you started with optimising your on-page SEO: 

  • Meta descriptions: A meta description is the small chunk of text that appears below your page title on a search result. Make sure these are concise, accurate and relevant to your content. 
  • Headings: DON’T use misleading titles. Click-bait titles may give you more initial clicks but will lead to a high bounce-rate when your content is not what is expected. Use H1 headings for your main title to help Google understand your content. 
  • Slugs: No not those slimy things in your garden! A slug is part of your URL that identifies a particular page on your website. Try to include your keywords in your slug and keep it short and sweet! People check to slug to ensure the content is what they are looking for. 

Off-page SEO and technical SEO are also important to consider on your website…luckily for you, we have our very own guide to all things SEO! Check it out here.  

If you want your SEO optimised but you are still unsure how, or maybe you simply don’t have the time, get in touch now! Here at Creative in Time we have a team of SEO experts just waiting to help you. Click here to book a discovery call now. 

SEO 5 Trends to take notice of in 2023

SEO 5 Trends to take notice of in 2023

by | Jul 2, 2021 | Digital Marketing

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is an effective way to attract customers to an online platform. With 74,000 individual search terms being typed into Google every second, it is vital to ensure your website is ranking high.  

Did you know that only 0.78% of Google searchers will click on results from the 2nd page or further? 

Getting your website to have top-ranking SEO performance requires attention to a multitude of trends and strategies. This guide should draw your attention to the best up-to-date SEO trends to watch out for in 2023.  

1. An Effective SEO Strategy Will Need to Include Video 

Video is quickly becoming one of the most effective ways to connect with consumers. It is projected to be consumed more than all other forms of content. Google recognises this and will likely show a website on the front page if it has a video alongside the written content. 

Use video as part of your SEO strategy as it much more effective than a written document.  BUT, always stay relevant and be optimised with keywords whilst still being user-friendly.  

A great platform to start with is YouTube. It is coming to the front due to its ever-growing audience; Using keywords, along with a relevant channel name and description, can help your website rank higher in searches.  

2. Increase Your Brand Awareness and Build Trust with Influencers 

Influencers can influence the decisions of their followers because of their relationship with their audience and their knowledge and expertise in a particular area, e.g. fashion, travel or technology.  

Influencers are often associated with trust, the more trust this person has the more people will follow their opinion. Changing your SEO marketing strategy to include an influencer can drastically increase your sales and reputation as a trustworthy business.  

Choosing the right person is key, a higher follower count does not equal a good fit for your business; looking into their audience, previous partnerships, and public image is key to ensure your business will profit from this endeavour. 

3. Mobile Friendliness 

Almost every person you talk to will own a smartphone. As they become more and more advanced and widely used, it is crucial for your website to be mobile-friendly.  

Ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly and can be accessed/read as intended on a mobile device is vital to ensure you do not eliminate this sector of your audience. It also allows you to check that everything functions as intended and that there is no compromise on quality.  

Google has a mobile-friendly test that can be used to check this. 

As technology has improved, devices that support voice search have become very popular. It is predicted that by 2022 over 55% of households will own a smart speaker. 

To optimise your content for this way of searching, you should ensure that you have effective keywords, and find longer and shorter phrases that people would use in conversation when talking about this topic. Including these phrases throughout your content can ensure better SEO optimisation for your content when using voice search. 

If this feels foreign to you, we can help! Book a discovery call here. 

5. Long-Form Content Will Help Improve SERPs  

Search engine results pages (SERPs) are the pages you encounter when doing a Google search.  

Producing long-form content (not to be confused with long-tail keywords) can help to rank higher on SERPs, however, this content must still be relevant and high quality. The length of your content can affect the number of traffic/shares that your website gets. A longer read of 3,000+ words can get 3x more traffic and 4x more shares.  

A longer content piece needs to keep the reader engaged and provide information that can be shared with other people. Longer content also provides you with more space to include your keywords. 

To make a long piece of content more readable, you should split it into sections using subheadings to make it easier to find specific information (this is especially important when being used on a mobile device). 

These 5 SEO trends to watch out for in 2023 show that SEO is constantly changing and evolving. It is critical to stay on top of these trends to keep your place in the rankings. However, it can be difficult to stay on top of the latest trends. 

If you are unsure how to incorporate these trends into your business or feel like you could be doing it better, CREATIVE in TiME are here to help.