SEO Best Practice

1. Use Keywords When Developing Content

Keywords are the terms your customers use when looking for products like yours. It doesn’t take long to discover which are the most popular keywords, using free online resources such as Google Trends or Keyword Generator.

Suppose you sell handmade jewellery, and you want to write a blog that will attract customers looking for your product. Your title will use a primary keyword such as ‘silver handmade jewellery’ which gets 1k searches each month. You’ll use secondary keywords, such as ‘etsy handmade jewellery’ (100 searches) or ‘handmade contemporary jewellery’ (70) for the subheadings, and content.

Keywords create a map which sends signals to the kind of searcher you ideally want to visit your site. Google is able to read this map, and alert appropriate searchers.

2. Use Clear Titles

Page titles tell visitors what you do, and how you do it. They also give Google a clear indication of the kind of business you are, and the services you offer. Your titles should use high volume keywords that clearly describe your products or services. You can use sub-headings to go into more details, but always be aware that the signal you send needs to be ultra-clear to hit its mark.

3. Add alt tags to Images

Images are a great way to boost visitor engagement, but they can also help with your Search Engine ranking. Google can’t see or interpret images, so you always have the option to add an ‘alt tag’. This is a verbal description of the image which is visible to Google. You can use keywords to describe your images, as another signal of your content. Additionally, you can add descriptions of images within the content.

4. Use Meta Descriptions

The meta description is the snippet of text that appears under the page title in the Google search. The content for your meta description is up to you, so it’s worthwhile making it appealing to prospective customers. Place yourself in their headspace and write copy that they would want to click on. Think of the meta description as a form of free advertising and make the most of it.

5. Linking Between Pages

When Google ‘crawls’ your pages for information on your product, it’s looking for a 360° view that it can use to differentiate you from all the other providers. Linking between pages helps to provide this view. There’s no hard and fast rule about the number of internal links that you provide; this will depend upon the length of the copy you’re writing and the subject matter it’s dealing with.

6. Create User-Focused Navigation

When someone lands on a website, they usually have a fairly clear idea of what it is they’re looking for. They’ll search homepage and menu to see if it’s available. For this reason, it’s important to design your menu and navigation with users as your primary focus. Once again, keywords have an important part to play in the language you use to help the user.

7. Carry Out an SEO Audit

An SEO audit is normally carried out by a digital marketing agency, specialising in SEO, but there are free audits available online too. These offer you an SEO health check, by demonstrating the strengths and weaknesses of your current SEO status. Best of all, they give you a step-by-step strategy for improving your current position in the Search Engine rankings.