If you are a business owner or someone newly tasked with boosting your website’s visibility, this post is going to take you through the basics for optimising SEO for your business.
I’ll break down the complex world of search engine optimisation into simple, actionable steps that you can apply to your website.
This guide is tailored to help you navigate the digital landscape with ease and confidence, even if you’re not an SEO expert.
What is SEO?
So, picture your business as a bustling, vibrant shop situated in the expansive, ever-changing city of the internet.
To ensure your shop doesn’t end up tucked away in some obscure corner, you need more than just a good location; you need at least one world-class city planner and marketer rolled into one: someone with SEO expertise.
This expert is akin to a master navigator and an ace publicist, all in one.
They know the digital streets like the back of their hand, aware of every nook and cranny where potential customers might lurk.
With their guidance, your business isn’t just another face in the vast internet crowd; it becomes a standout landmark.
They use a mix of savvy keywords, compelling content, and clever links to put up dazzling neon signs that draw eyes and clicks to your shop.
But there’s more to it. Search engines, like Google, are like the city’s traffic cops, constantly changing the rules of the road.
Your SEO expert stays ahead of these changes, ensuring that your business isn’t just following trends but setting them.
They monitor the flow of digital traffic, adapting strategies to keep your shop front and centre.
Moreover, in this digital city, reputation is everything.
Your SEO guru not only makes your shop easy to find but also makes it the talk of the town.
They craft stories and experiences that resonate with your audience, turning casual browsers into loyal customers.
Optimising your business website for SEO is all about transforming your business from a hidden gem into a glittering, unmissable spot on the main street of the World Wide Web.
15 Steps For Optimising SEO For Your Business Website
- Perform Keyword Research
- Optimise Your Website Structure
- Create High-Quality Content
- Optimise Page Titles and Meta Descriptions
- Correctly Use Header Tags
- Optimise Images
- Mobile-Friendliness and Responsiveness
- Improve Page Load Speed
- Implement Internal Linking
- Build Quality Backlinks
- Measure Your Website Analytics
- Create and Submit a Sitemap
- Regularly Update Content
- Monitor and Adjust Your SEO Strategy
- Fix Your Website Conversions Rate
Perform Keyword Research
Identifying relevant keywords and phrases for a business involves understanding its niche, target audience, and the specific language the target audience uses when searching for related products or services.
This can be achieved through:
- Market Research: Understand the business’s target audience, their needs, and search habits.
- Competitor Analysis: Look at keywords competitors are ranking for.
- SEO Tools: Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs for keyword suggestions and analytics.
In 2023 and beyond, finding low-competition keywords is super challenging due to the saturation of the digital marketplace.
Many businesses (with either large SEO budgets and/or a long online history) have already optimised for a wide range of keywords, making it harder to find untapped opportunities.
Don’t Be Seduced By High-Volume Keywords
Targeting high-volume keywords isn’t always beneficial, especially for smaller businesses or niche markets.
These keywords often attract a broad audience, including those seeking information rather than intending to make a purchase.
High competition in these keywords also means it’s harder to rank well.
Instead, targeting long-tail keywords with lower monthly search volumes can be more effective.
These keywords are often more specific and align closely with the searcher’s intent, especially for those ready to make a purchase or seeking specialised services.
For instance, a business leader searching for ‘strategic management consulting services in New York’ is likely closer to a purchase decision than someone searching for ‘management consulting,’ which could be a general inquiry or academic research.
The specific nature of the long-tail keyword indicates a targeted need, aligning closely with the intent of potential clients actively seeking specialised consulting services in a specific location.
Focusing on these specific, lower-volume keywords can lead to higher conversion rates and less competition, making it a smarter strategy for businesses aiming to attract a targeted, buying audience.
Optimise Your Website Structure
Optimising SEO by focusing on your website structure involves organising content in a logical, user-friendly manner.
Here’s how:
- Content Silos or Topic Clusters: This approach groups related content into distinct sections or ‘silos‘. Organising content by themes or topics enhances user navigation and helps search engines understand the site’s structure and content relevance.
- Categories: Similar to silos, categorising content makes navigation intuitive for users and search engines. It helps in grouping related topics under broad headings, aiding in better indexing and user experience.
- Schema Code: Implementing schema markup (structured data) helps search engines understand the context of your content. It provides explicit clues about the meaning of a page and enhances rich snippets in search results.
The importance of these elements lies in creating a clear, thematic structure that both search engines and users can navigate easily.
This clarity improves SEO, as search engines can better index and rank the site, and enhance user experience, leading to longer site visits and higher engagement.
Regarding the focus on aesthetics over SEO in web design, many business websites suffer because they prioritise visual appeal over functional structure.
While a visually striking website may initially attract visitors, its long-term success in converting visitors into subscribers and leads depends heavily on its discoverability and usability.
When SEO is treated as an afterthought, websites often lack the foundational elements needed for effective ranking and user engagement.
This oversight can result in a beautiful website that fails to reach its target audience or achieve its business objectives.
Successful web design balances aesthetics with a strong SEO strategy from the outset, ensuring the site not only looks great but is also easily found and navigated by its intended audience.
Creating High-Quality Content
Creating high-quality content that attracts ideal clients involves focusing on two main aspects: their current problem (Point A) and the desired result (Point B).
This approach works because:
- Addressing Point A (The Problem): By acknowledging and exploring the problems or pain points your audience is experiencing, you create content that resonates with them on a personal level. This builds trust and shows empathy.
- Highlighting Point B (The Desired Result): Offering a vision of the solution or the desired outcome gives your audience a clear understanding of how your service or product can help them transition from their current state to their desired state.
Content that fails to address these two aspects tends to be less effective because:
- For the Business: If content doesn’t align with the audience’s needs and goals, it fails to engage or convert visitors into customers. It might generate traffic but not necessarily the right kind that leads to business growth.
- For the Audience: Content that doesn’t speak to the audience’s specific problems or desired outcomes can come across as irrelevant or unhelpful. This can lead to a lack of engagement, trust, and loyalty, as the audience doesn’t see the value or relevance of what’s being offered.
Conversion-focused and problem-focused content that effectively bridges the gap between a client’s current challenges and their aspirational goals is more likely to engage the right audience, leading to better business outcomes and more meaningful assistance to those the business aims to serve.
Optimise Page Titles and Meta Descriptions
Improving your website’s page titles and meta descriptions is crucial for optimising SEO.
What are Page Titles and Meta Descriptions?
Page Titles: The title of a webpage, displayed prominently in search engine results and browser tabs.
Meta Descriptions: Summaries of a webpage’s content, appear under the title in search results.
Where Are They Seen?
Both are prominently displayed in search engine results pages (SERPs), offering a snapshot of what your page is about.
Why are They Important?
Attracting Clicks: Compelling titles and descriptions can influence whether someone clicks on your link in SERPs.
Relevancy Signals: They provide search engines with context, helping to determine how relevant your page is to search queries.
Keyword Relevance: Including targeted keywords in both can improve the page’s visibility for those searches.
To optimise these elements:
- Be Concise and Clear: Keep titles under 60 characters and meta descriptions about 155 characters to ensure they display fully in SERPs.
- Use Keywords Strategically: Include relevant keywords towards the beginning of the title and meta description.
- Reflect Content Accurately: Ensure they accurately represent the content of the page.
- Entice the Reader: Write in an engaging way that prompts users to want to learn more by clicking on your webpage.
Correctly Use Heading Tags
Heading tags, such as H1, H2, H3, and so forth, are essential HTML elements used to structure and organise content on a webpage.
They play a crucial role in both enhancing user experience and boosting SEO effectiveness.
These tags are used to define the hierarchy of content, with H1 tags typically used for the main title of the page, followed by H2 for main headings, and H3 for subheadings.
This hierarchical structure not only makes content more readable and navigable for users but also allows search engines to better understand and index the content, which is critical for SEO.
The importance of correctly using heading tags ties directly into the optimisation of a website’s structure.
A well-structured website, with clearly defined headings and subheadings, ensures that both users and search engines can easily navigate and comprehend the site’s content.
It contributes to a positive user experience, keeping visitors engaged and reducing bounce rates, which are factors search engines consider when ranking sites.
Furthermore, incorporating relevant keywords into these headings can enhance a website’s SEO by aligning with search queries and improving visibility in search engine results.
However, it’s crucial to use these tags judiciously and avoid overstuffing them with keywords, as this can lead to a negative user experience and potentially harm SEO efforts.
Heading tags are not just formatting tools but key elements in structuring content effectively for both user engagement and search engine optimisation.
Their proper use is a critical component in the broader strategy of optimising a website’s structure, contributing significantly to a site’s overall SEO success.
Optimise Images
Optimising images is a crucial aspect of SEO for several reasons, including enhancing website performance and accessibility:
- Improved Load Times: Large, unoptimised images can slow down a website’s load time, negatively impacting user experience and SEO rankings, as search engines favour fast-loading sites.
- Increased Visibility: By adding descriptive alt text to images, you make your content more understandable for search engines. This not only helps in image search rankings but also contributes to the overall SEO of the page.
- Enhanced Accessibility: Alt text is essential for screen readers used by visually impaired users. Providing a clear, descriptive alt text for images ensures that all users, regardless of visual ability, can understand the content, making your website more inclusive and accessible. Accessibility is important as it ensures equal access to information and functionality for people with disabilities, aligning with web standards and improving the user experience for a wider audience.
Optimising images is not just about improving search rankings; it’s also about enhancing the user experience and ensuring that your website is accessible to all users, which is a key component of modern web design and SEO best practices.
Mobile-Friendliness and Responsiveness
The importance of mobile-friendliness and responsiveness in optimising SEO for your website cannot be overstated.
With the majority of internet users accessing the web via mobile devices, search engines like Google have shifted to a mobile-first indexing approach.
This means that the mobile version of your website is now the primary version considered in determining your search rankings.
Having a mobile-friendly website ensures that it displays and functions properly across various devices, particularly on smartphones and tablets.
This adaptability enhances user experience, as visitors can easily navigate and interact with your site regardless of their device.
Improved user experience leads to increased engagement, lower bounce rates, and potentially higher conversion rates, all of which are favourable factors in the eyes of search engines.
Moreover, Google’s algorithm updates have increasingly focused on user experience as a key ranking factor.
Websites that are not optimised for mobile devices may suffer in search rankings, making it harder for them to attract organic traffic.
Key points to consider for mobile-friendliness and responsiveness include:
- Ensuring fast loading times on mobile devices.
- Using a responsive design that adjusts to different screen sizes.
- Simplifying navigation for ease of use on smaller screens.
- Making sure text is readable without zooming on mobile devices.
Prioritising mobile-friendliness and responsiveness is essential not only for better SEO rankings but also for providing a positive and accessible experience to the growing number of mobile internet users.
It’s a critical aspect of modern SEO strategy for any business looking to succeed online.
Use this free basic test to see how mobile-friendly your website is:
Improve Page Load Speed
Improving page load speed is a vital aspect of optimising SEO for a business website, primarily due to its significant impact on user experience and search engine rankings.
In today’s fast-paced digital world, users expect quick access to information. Slow-loading pages can lead to increased bounce rates, as visitors are likely to leave the site if it doesn’t load promptly.
This user behaviour signals to search engines like Google that the website may not provide a satisfactory user experience, potentially leading to lower rankings.
Key points to consider:
- Search Engine Ranking: Google uses page speed as a ranking factor in its algorithms.
- User Engagement: Faster websites retain users better, encouraging more interaction and longer visit durations.
- Conversion Rates: Improved load times have been linked to higher conversion rates; users are more likely to engage with and purchase from a website that loads quickly.
Therefore, regularly testing and improving your website’s load time is essential, not only for SEO purposes but also for providing a smooth and enjoyable user experience, crucial for retaining customers and achieving business success online.
Implement Internal Linking
Implementing internal linking as part of optimising SEO for a business website is a vital strategy.
It plays a crucial role in how search engines crawl and understand your site.
Importance of Internal Linking in SEO
Enhances Website Navigation: Internal links connect various pages within your website, improving navigation and allowing users to easily find relevant content. This can lead to increased page views and reduced bounce rates.
Boosts Page Rankings: Search engines, like Google, use internal links to crawl websites. The more links a page has pointing to it, the higher its likelihood of ranking well in search results.
Aids in Content Discovery: Internal linking helps search engines discover new content to index and rank. It’s particularly beneficial for pointing out important pages, increasing their visibility and traffic.
Challenges in Implementing Internal Linking
Time-Consuming Process: Manually adding internal links can be a tedious task, especially for large websites with numerous pages and posts.
Missed Opportunities: Without a systematic approach, there’s a risk of missing key linking opportunities, and failing to connect important content effectively.
Simplifying the Task with WordPress Plugins
Automated Link Suggestions: Plugins like AIOSEO provide smart suggestions for internal linking based on existing content, ensuring relevant and effective links.
Identifying Orphaned Pages: These plugins can identify pages with no internal links, known as ‘orphaned’ pages. Linking these pages can improve their indexing speed and search ranking.
Broken Link Checker: Tools like the Broken Link Checker by AIOSEO help maintain the health of internal links by identifying and fixing broken links, thus ensuring the integrity of the website’s link structure.
For WordPress websites, several plugins facilitate the internal linking process:
- AIOSEO: Offers detailed link reports, smart internal link suggestions, and a broken link checker.
- Rank Math: Provides suggestions for adding internal links within the WordPress content editor.
- Link Whisper: Suggests phrases for linking and helps identify posts with few or no internal links.
- SearchWP: Known for great performance in improving content relevance and facilitating the inclusion of similar posts.
Optimising internal linking is a key element in SEO strategy, enhancing both user experience and search engine performance.
While it can be challenging due to its time-intensive nature, utilising WordPress plugins can streamline the process, ensuring a more efficient and effective implementation of internal links.
Build Quality Backlinks
Building quality backlinks is a pivotal aspect of optimising SEO for a business website.
Backlinks, which are links from other websites to your own, act as endorsements in the eyes of search engines.
High-quality backlinks from reputable, relevant sites can significantly boost a website’s authority and search engine rankings.
However, acquiring these backlinks is not without its challenges.
The landscape of link building has evolved, making it harder to gain backlinks organically.
Many high-authority sites are inundated with link requests, making it difficult for newer or smaller sites to gain traction.
To complement the task of building backlinks, businesses can consider both sponsored and free tactics:
Sponsored Content
Paying for sponsored posts or articles on well-established sites can be a direct, albeit costly, way to gain quality backlinks.
This method ensures visibility and link placement on relevant platforms.
Free Tactics
Guest Blogging: Offering to write valuable content for other sites in exchange for a backlink.
Utilising HARO (Help a Reporter Out): A platform where journalists seek expert opinions and quotes, providing an opportunity to gain backlinks from reputable news sites or blogs.
Creating Shareable Content: Developing high-quality, informative, or unique content that naturally encourages sharing and linking.
Despite the challenges, the effort put into acquiring quality backlinks is extremely worthwhile.
Backlinks not only boost SEO but also drive referral traffic and enhance brand visibility.
Measure Your Website Analytics
Measuring website analytics is an indispensable part of optimising SEO for a business website.
The maxim “you can’t improve what you don’t measure” aptly captures the essence of this necessity.
Without analytics, a business is essentially operating blind in the digital realm, unable to gauge the effectiveness of its online presence or SEO strategies.
This lack of visibility hinders informed decision-making and strategic planning, making it challenging to enhance performance or correct course when needed.
Analytics provide a wealth of information, from user behaviour patterns and traffic sources to engagement metrics and conversion rates.
This data is crucial for understanding how well your website resonates with your target audience and how effectively it drives desired actions, be it sales, sign-ups, or inquiries.
By monitoring these metrics, you can identify what aspects of your website and content are performing well and which areas need improvement.
However, the task of continuously tracking and analysing website data can be daunting, particularly for businesses without dedicated analytics expertise.
The complexity of data and the need for regular monitoring can make it challenging for businesses to effectively leverage this valuable resource.
To simplify the process, it’s advisable to:
- Use analytics tools with user-friendly interfaces, which can provide clear, actionable insights without the need for deep technical knowledge.
- Set up automated reporting systems to receive regular updates on key metrics, reducing the need for constant manual monitoring.
- Consider engaging with professionals or services that specialise in data analysis and interpretation, ensuring that you can make the most of your website analytics without being overwhelmed by the technicalities.
Key privacy concerns with Google Analytics
- Data Collection and Use: Google Analytics collects extensive data on user interactions, such as page views, link clicks, and geographical location. This data is used to build detailed profiles for advertising purposes, raising concerns about the extent of personal information being gathered.
- Responsibility for Anonymising Information: Google instructs website owners to ensure they do not send Personally Identifiable Information (PII) via Analytics. However, compliance with this directive is reportedly low, and Google’s policies around the inadvertent collection of PII are not very clear.
- Use of Cookies and Measurement Protocol: Google Analytics uses first-party cookies to track user activities, including social interactions and app usage. The Measurement Protocol also allows tracking of offline behaviour, further intensifying privacy concerns.
- Integration with Google AdWords: Google Analytics complements Google’s advertising model, using collected data to help businesses target ads more effectively. However, this also means that Google has access to a vast amount of data, even if users do not use AdWords.
- Remarketing Feature: Google AdWords offers a remarketing feature that enables businesses to retarget website visitors across devices, which can feel invasive and pose privacy issues.
In response to these privacy concerns, alternatives like Fathom Analytics have gained popularity.
They offer a privacy-centric approach, focusing on essential insights while ensuring user data protection.
This balance of functionality and privacy is increasingly important in a digital landscape where data protection is a key concern for both businesses and consumers.
Create and Submit a Sitemap
Creating and submitting a sitemap is a fundamental part of optimising SEO for a business website due to several key reasons:
- Facilitates Efficient Crawling and Indexing: A sitemap is essentially a blueprint of your website that lists all its pages, images, and videos. This structure helps search engines find, crawl, and index your website’s content more effectively, ensuring that all your pages are considered in search results.
- Enhances Website Organisation: Sitemaps contribute to better organisation of your website. They act as roadmaps for search engine crawlers, guiding them through your site’s content and ensuring no valuable page goes unnoticed. This systematic approach to content arrangement is vital for both user experience and search engine efficiency.
- Ensures Comprehensive Coverage in Search Engines: By creating and submitting a sitemap, you can ensure that all pages of your website are indexed by search engines. This is crucial for improving the visibility of your pages to potential visitors, which in turn can drive more traffic and achieve higher search engine rankings.
The process of creating and submitting a sitemap involves:
- Creating the Sitemap: Use tools like XML Sitemap Generator to create a sitemap for your website. This should include all pages, images, videos, and other content you want search engines to index.
- Submitting the Sitemap: Once your sitemap is created, submit it to search engines like Google and Bing. This can typically be done through their respective webmaster tools, such as Google Search Console.
- Monitoring and Updating: Regularly monitor your sitemap for any errors and keep it updated with new content to ensure search engines have the latest version of your site.
With website structure, a well-organised sitemap complements a thoughtfully designed website architecture.
It reinforces the categorisation and hierarchy of the website, making it more navigable for users and easier for search engines to understand the structure and importance of different pages.
This coherence between website structure and sitemap not only enhances SEO but also plays a crucial role in improving overall website accessibility.
Simple Sitemap Creation in WordPress
Creating a sitemap in WordPress is quite straightforward, especially with the variety of user-friendly tools and plugins available.
Here’s a simplified explanation:
- WordPress Default Sitemaps: Since WordPress 5.5, the platform automatically generates a basic XML sitemap for your website. You can usually find this sitemap by appending
/wp-sitemap.xmlto your site’s URL. - Using Plugins: For more control and features, you can use SEO plugins. Popular options include Yoast SEO, All in One SEO Pack, and Google XML Sitemaps. These plugins offer more advanced sitemap customisation and management features.
Using a WordPress plugin not only simplifies the creation and management of sitemaps but also integrates seamlessly with your website’s ongoing SEO strategy.
These plugins often provide additional SEO tools and recommendations, making them a valuable asset for any WordPress site owner looking to improve their search engine visibility.
Regularly Update Content
Regularly updating content is a pivotal aspect of SEO for a business website.
- The Ever-Evolving Content Creation Process: Content creation is not a one-time event; it’s an ongoing journey. Whether it’s new content that’s achieved immediate success or older content that’s been overlooked, there’s always an opportunity to review and update it to ensure it remains relevant and effective.
- Staying Competitive: The internet is dynamic, with competitors continuously enhancing their content. To stay ahead, it’s crucial to regularly innovate and update your content, ensuring it remains more valuable and relevant to users than that of your competitors.
- Adapting to Changing Searcher Behavior: Searcher intent and behaviour evolve. Content that once meets user needs might no longer be as effective. Regular updates ensure your content continues to align with current searcher intent, keeping it relevant and useful.
- Maintaining Up-to-Date Information: Including current, relevant facts and statistics is vital for authoritative content. As new research emerges and facts change, updating your content ensures it remains accurate and credible.
- Selecting Pages for Revision: Some pages are more critical to update than others, including ones that used to rank well but have dropped, pages that underperformed, and even your top-performing pages to maintain their rankings.
To effectively update content:
- Review Facts and Citations: Update any outdated facts, figures, and citations. Ensure external links are still active and replace old data with the most current research.
- Optimise for Searcher Intent: Ensure your content matches current searcher intent. This might include revising the content to make it more direct and user-friendly and adding features like calculators or widgets to enhance user interaction.
- Reevaluate Keywords: Reassess and update your keyword strategy. Avoid keyword stuffing and ensure natural, conversational use of keywords throughout the content.
- Update Links and Anchor Text: Check internal links and anchor text for relevance and opportunities to link to newer content, thus enhancing the SEO value of your entire site.
- Ensure Mobile Compatibility: With the growing importance of mobile-first indexing, ensure your content offers a seamless experience on mobile devices.
Regularly updating content is not just about keeping the information current, but also about staying aligned with user needs, search engine algorithms, and the competitive landscape.
This practice is integral to maintaining and enhancing a website’s SEO performance and overall user experience.
Monitor and Adjust Your SEO Strategy
Monitoring and adjusting your SEO strategy is vital for the success of a business website for several reasons:
- Ongoing Process: SEO is not a set-and-forget task but a continuous journey. Regular checks and adjustments are essential to stay on the right path.
- Tracking Key Metrics: SEO monitoring involves closely observing your website’s performance in search engines and tracking metrics like organic traffic, backlinks, and keyword rankings. These metrics provide invaluable insights into your website’s SEO health.
- Understanding Audience Behaviour: Monitoring SEO efforts helps you understand your audience better, including which pages they visit most, the keywords they use, and their engagement level with your content.
- Identifying Areas for Improvement: Regular SEO tracking can highlight areas needing improvement, such as pages not ranking well or issues with mobile-friendliness.
- Competitive Analysis: Staying one step ahead of the competition is possible by monitoring their SEO strategies, which can inform your own.
- Measuring Success: SEO monitoring allows you to measure the effectiveness of your efforts by comparing current performance against past data.
- Adapting to Changes: SEO is dynamic, with search engine algorithms and trends constantly evolving. Regularly reviewing and updating your strategy ensures it remains aligned with these changes and your business goals.
- Balancing Long-Term Goals: SEO requires patience, consistency, and ongoing learning. Continuous monitoring and adjusting keep your strategy effective over the long term.
In summary, the importance of monitoring and adjusting your SEO strategy cannot be overstated. It ensures that your website remains competitive, relevant, and effectively tailored to both your audience’s needs and the ever-evolving landscape of search engine algorithms.
Fix Your Website Conversion Rate For Free
In this comprehensive post, we’ve journeyed through the essentials of optimising SEO for your business website.
From understanding the significance of keyword research, structuring your website effectively, and creating high-quality content, to the nuances of page titles, meta descriptions, and image optimisation – these are key strategies for enhancing your online presence.
We’ve also emphasised the ongoing need to monitor and adjust your SEO strategy, ensuring your business remains competitive and relevant.
However, as a business owner, delving into the complexities of SEO is most likely not your primary expertise.
It’s a bit like having a car but not knowing how to fuel it properly – your website needs the right SEO strategies to truly thrive in the digital landscape.
To get started with optimising SEO for your website, apply for our free Conversion Growth Report.
This personalised report offers a comprehensive review of your website and broader online business aspects, focusing on conversion, lead generation, and competitive positioning.
Tailored specifically for professional services like yours, it’s the first step towards transforming your digital presence into a powerful tool for business growth.