SEO Guide (Search Engine Optimisation)

Keyword Research

A good place to start work with SEO is keyword research. Google Analytics (GA) and Google Keyword Planner are two vital tools for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and keyword research. Amongst many other things, Google Analytics allows you to monitor how well your website is ranking based on keyword searches. Google Keyword Planner shows you what keywords generate the most searches based on your website topic. This allows you to choose the right keywords to include within the content of your site.

Website Content

However, SEO is not just about keywords. Website content is another massive factor, and just writing a few words on each page will no longer work. Keep in mind that you have to “Write for people first and search engines second” this means balancing keywords and code with some really great content. Also, the amount of content is relevant. Google now expects upwards of 300 words per page. The balance between content, keywords, and code is a skill that you have to master in order to have your website ranked high on Google. The reason search engines look at the content, as well as the keywords on a website, is because the two fundamental principles of SEO. These are to create a great, seamless user experience and to communicate to the search engines your intentions so they can recommend your website for relevant searches.

Technical SEO

Websites have a lot going on under the bonnet, things that we cannot see, but Google watches carefully. Things like site speed, meta descriptions, alt tags, title tags and much more. Google looks at more than 200 factors when ranking a website. Getting your site running smoothly with no errors is a good way to immediately increase ranking. Another Google free tool you can use to see these errors is Google Search Console, previously known as Google Webmaster Tools. This is a powerful tool for seeing how Google looks at your website and the problems it encounters, like broken links etc.

SEO is something that is constantly evolving and changing, therefore, it will need to be constantly monitored and updated as the best practices often change year on year.

Search Engine Optimisation Companies

SEO is now a huge industry; businesses can pay SEO companies a fee for their services. This can include search marketing campaigns such as the paid ads at the top of the search results page as well as website optimisation.

Search Engine Rankings

Search engines are looking for websites and content that is the most relevant to the user’s search. Relevancy is determined by content, performance, authority and user experience. One detrimental factor on your webpage rank is Keyword Stuffing. This is the overuse or stuffing of keywords onto your pages. This can make your content sound very robotic. Remember in order to avoid this keep the readability suitable for the target audience in mind. Another detrimental factor to the rank of your website is if you purchased useless and spammy Back Links. The links to your site have to have quality content on, Google no longer looks at the number of links to your site but the quality of those links: Buying links just to attach them to your website will get you nowhere.

An analogy to use for SEO is to think of it like a cake. The Links, Marketing and Social are the candles, the content, information, platform/CMS and infrastructure is the cake and the SEO is the icing on all of that.

SEO History
Seo has been around for 12 years. When things started it was much simpler because Google couldn’t police the way companies optimised their websites. For example, making sure the most important keyword was included as often as possible (keyword stuffing). Link building was another key factor in high website search rankings the number of links to your page boosted your search ranking, the quality of the links never factored into it, basically, the more links to your site the better the quality of your site was considered.

To master the SEO of today is a genuine skill. SEO has defiantly changed in the past 11 years; however, Google still looks at many of the same factors for ranking your website. The way you go about achieving these things has evolved due to Googles’ policing methods and algorithm changes. Back in 2004 you worked with: Title Tags, Meta Descriptions, H(x) Headings, Internal links, Content and finally Alt tags, and in the present 2016 all these things still need to be optimised, they may not have the same signal they once did and this is debatable, but all of these should be optimised.