SEO COMPANY BEDFORD

6 SEO Tips for Bedford Clients

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It’s been around for 20 years now, and it’s a key element in any online marketing campaign. There are 3 ways that SEO improves your sales potential:

1. It optimises your ranking in Search Engines such as Google or Yahoo
2. A high Search Engine ranking increases your site’s visitor numbers
3. SEO ensures improves your ratio of appropriate click throughs

Your positioning in the Search Engine rankings is dependent on how well you meet SEO criteria. This is a checklist, created by Google, which determines how easy to navigate, relevant, and useful your site is for online visitors. Your adherence to these criteria is judged by web ‘crawlers’ or ‘bots’ that assess your site and rank it accordingly. The more closely you meet the criteria, the more likely that your site will appear on Page 1.

How Can I Improve My SEO Ranking?

This is a critical question for all website owners, and it needs to be asked regularly. Google updates its criteria frequently, so SEO is an ongoing process, rather than a one-off event. For clients wanted to make improvements in their Search Engine ranking, Imagefix has created a 6 step guide:

1. Easy-to-Use Website Navigation

The big brands take user navigation extremely seriously, and have whole teams dedicated to designing and testing. It’s important because SEO prioritises user experience (UX). An excellent way to test this is to recruit a friend who’s new to the website to try it out. Watch as they find their way through the site, and you’ll get a very clear indication of how well your online offering anticipates visitors’ needs, and guides them through the sales process.

2. Mobile Friendly Websites Rank High

Over 50% of online searches now take place on mobile devices. Website design still defaults to desktop computers, though. So you’ll need to check that your website works equally well on tablets and phones. In an ideal world, your website design will incorporate responsive (mobile friendly) features from the get-go. If you have a design that needs to be retroactively adapted, there are a number of steps you can take.

3. How Do People Search For …?

Online success depends on capturing the people who are searching for products like yours. That means knowing how they search. You may be using a set of keywords on your website that searchers aren’t using any longer. Or, if you’re a local provider, they may just be typing in “xxxx near me”, in which case you need to get your Google My Business account up and running, fast.

4. Where Do Your Competitors Succeed?

It’s a scary question, but your competitors are essential to you improving your SEO. Who’s above you in the Google rankings – especially those on the front page? Now take a long, hard look at their offering. What are they offering online visitors that you don’t. Forget whether their product is better than yours, and concentrate on the resources they provide, the keywords they focus on, and the functionality of their site.

5. Does Your Site Load in Less than 10 Seconds?

It’s simple to check this one – and important to take action if your site loads slowly. Your potential visitors are used to loading up Amazon, or Google instantaneously. So why would they wait for a site that’s taking more than a few seconds? One of the most common reasons for a slow loading site is large image files; check yours out, and any that are over 100kb should be resized straight away.

6. How Relevant Is Your Content?

Online searchers no longer want to be sold stuff indiscriminately; instead they want to be treated as an individual. Your content needs to reflect this. In place of the old sales splurge, Google is looking for content that is genuinely useful to visitors. One of the best ways to determine what content is relevant, is to find out what questions your visitors are asking about products like yours.

Looking For Help With Your SEO?

Getting your SEO spot on is important to your online success, and the good news is that there’s plenty of help available. If you’re looking for a detailed analysis of your website’s current SEO status, you can get a free SEO audit. This will give you a checklist of actions to raise your ranking. Imagefix Digital Marketing Agency offers a range of SEO services either at the design stage, or on existing websites. We have a great track record on SEO, and can guarantee you a Page 1 ranking in the search engines.