SEO can be a daunting task, many people see it as a complicated, time consuming process when it really doesn’t have to be. The key to any website is the content, writing good quality content will not only keep potential customers on your site, but in tern Google will see these users spending time on your site, and may even give you a rankings boost for doing so.

Writing good content

• Keep your paragraphs short, don’t scare off your readers by displaying lots of information in one go.
• Keep your language quite simple, most people on the web are short of time & don’t want to spend time figuring out what you are trying to say.
• Use headings to illustrate what the page is about, and what you’re trying to communicate.
• Use bullet points, they get the point to the reader quickly.
• Make it easy for people to find your site, this process is called SEO

Keywords

When you add your site to Google, Google will scan it and pick up multiple things. One of the most important being keywords. Keywords are defined in a HTML meta tag. Let’s say we sell cars and we’re based in South Wales, UK. Some example keywords might be “Car Sales South Wales”, “Car Sales Bridgend”, “Used Cars South Wales”, “Cheep Cars Cardiff”. Using these keywords we’re targeting certain areas, after all most small businesses aren’t going to have the budget or time to compete with the larger companies trying to get one Google’s page 1 for “Used Cars UK”.

You also want to keep your keywords in the content, Google will like this but don’t over do it because you’ll be penalized. Also, keeping keywords in the URL of your page will help you slide up the rankings.

Code Quality

Google want the to deliver the best content to their users, so they rank well coded and well designed websites before sites which aren’t coded well(Content etc aside). Make sure your website is W3C compliant.

Other tips:

• Your meta description, within the head of your HTML document is what appears below the title of your page on Google, keep this short and simple, let the user know what your website is about, and what you do as a business.
• Offsite SEO is also important, remember to link both to and from social media to your website.
• Ask partners/friends to add backlinks to your website from their site.
• Create a blog to target potential customers and keep it updated. Google will like that you’re regularly updating your site, and potential customers will see that you’re an active, helpful company.
• Set up Google Analytics and Google Search Console to monitor how your site is doing and where your business is coming from.
• Make sure customers know how they can contact you. Always show your phone number, or at least always have a link to a contact page.
• Title your pages correctly, don’t just call your home page “Home” call it something descriptive, this appears on search results, and is a major SEO factor
• Google likes content, try and keep your word count over 300 for each page.