Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a must for modern websites. As the name suggests, SEO involves configuring a website in the optimal way for it to be indexed by search engines (such as Google and Bing) and served to people searching for that website’s product or service.
With effective SEO a website is more likely to show up higher in search results for a given keyword. Obviously this is important for a business website.
What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?
SEO involves making a website as friendly as possible for search engines so that it appears at the top of search results for a given query.
For example, if you run a domestic cleaning business that services the Mornington Peninsula, you would want to rank well for searches such as “domestic cleaning Mornington Peninsula,” “house cleaning Mornington Peninsula,” or even “holiday house cleaning.” If your website is number one for these kinds of searches, more potential customers will come to your site and, if you have a good user experience on your site, many of these users should convert.
SEO is not a one time action, and it’s not a quick “magic bullet” to suddenly get a website tons of visitors. Instead, it works with other elements of a digital marketing strategy to improve over time.
Because of this it can be difficult to know where to start with a site’s SEO. There’s so many factors it may be difficult to see what the problem is (or whether it’s just one problem!). That’s where we can help, so get in touch with any SEO questions.
How to Know if You May Have an SEO Problem
If you don’t have much experience with digital marketing, it can be difficult to find what may be causing your site to not rank well. Even worse, you may not even be aware you have a problem or that your site could do better.
Key things to look at to get a gauge on how your site is performing in search engines include:
- Sharp changes in organic traffic – if you already have website reporting set up, comparing organic traffic (traffic from search engines) over similar periods of time can be beneficial. If a site suddenly loses a lot organic traffic, there may be a problem.
- Not appearing in search results for important search terms – for some search terms it may be difficult or even impossible to outrank larger competitors, but a site should still be ranking somewhere, even if it’s not ranking well. There are free and paid tools to check for this, but even manually checking works.
- Ranking for things you shouldn’t be – for example ranking for the wrong geographic area or worse, ranking for something inappropriate such as vulgar terms. The latter may indicate a potential website hack while the former may indicate some more minor technical problems.
In an area like the Mornington Peninsula local SEO is also very important. Again, you should be ranking somewhere for some local terms if your service area is heavily involved with the Mornington Peninsula or another prominent region.
When Will I See Results for an SEO Campaign?
The short answer is “it depends.” It depends on what the problem is and what the solution is. Generally speaking, improving SEO takes time and ongoing effort.
Often the general formatting throughout a website needs to be reworked and, after fixing it, results will be seen quickly. This can even be done without a full website rebuild. Along with site formatting, it may just be a problem with a site being easily indexable by search engines. Once again, an easy fix that should show results pretty quickly.
If your site’s content is relatively thin, a Content Marketing campaign can help improve search engine rankings by giving your site authority with search engines. However, this can take time to produce and for search engines to recognise the changes. This is similar for general copywriting of landing pages and other site content. Both of which are often worth it in these circumstances.
SEO isn’t one simple problem, so it’s not one simple solution.
What’s Involved In An SEO Campaign
An SEO campaign can involve a lot of different things depending on what the state of a website and what needs to get done.
Initial SEO Assessment
We usually start with an initial SEO assessment. This is designed to find the work that needs to get done, outline it to a client, and make a plan of action.
Keyword Research
Finding the right keywords is another important first step in any SEO campaign. We find these keywords and present them to our clients.
Heading & Title Optimisation
We can often find quick wins by optimising page titles, heading, and other “broad stroke” content on a website, so we usually do that first.
Content Optimisation
Making sure content is optimised in another great way to get SEO gains in the early part of a campaign. We outline and action these for a client.
Off page Optimisation
Off page optimisations like business listings, Search Console, and even link building can also be used to improve rankings over time.
Ongoing Monitoring
With initial actions finished, an ongoing campaign involving reporting, monitoring, and optimising can take place to grow further.
