What does SEO mean?
In short, when you search for something on Google you expect to see the best and most appropriate results for your search query at the top of Google, correct?
The real objective of SEO, is to get top rankings on Google so that new customers can click on your website.
That’s what SEO does, it gives you the opportunity to be at the top of Google, so that your customers are more likely to click on your website.
It increases your exposure online, so that you can get more traffic, more organic visitors to your website.
And therefore – they can call you, get a quote from you, and then become your next customer.
What is an SEO Audit?
An SEO Audit is a check through your website to see what can be done to help your site rank and show higher in organic searches in Google and other search engines. In this quick guide we are going to look at the top areas to check broken down into three groups:
On Page SEO – Getting the keywords, content, headings, formatting, tags, and meta data correct on your website.
Off Page SEO – Building credibility for your website, links to your website from other websites, directories, articles, industry links and other accreditations.
Technical SEO – Technical Coding, Server Response Rates, Security Certificates – it requires software development, systems and programming knowledge in order to effectively speed up your website and associated infrastructure.
Running through these basic checks will help the overall performance of your website.
On-Page SEO
There are several areas of On-Page SEO to check, but we will look at the main ones here:
Page Titles for SEO
The page title is exactly that, it tells Google and your users what the page is about, and it helps decide the relevancy of that page to a Google search query. Your page titles will show within the Google results, they’ll show at the top of the web browser for your users, and in external websites where your page might have been shared (Facebook for example).
• Keep it short and impactful (55-65 characters’ maximum)
• Use keywords in your title
• Front load your keywords in your title
• Keep your titles unique and interesting
• Entice a user to click through to your page with your title
Descriptions / Meta Tags for SEO
Meta Descriptions and Tags provide further context to both your users and to Google, it gives a little more depth to your title and allows you to append certain “tags” (think like #hashtags) to your page. Descriptions will display within Google’s search results under the title, and is typically the second place a real person will look before clicking through to your website and making that “click commitment”.
• Make it snappy and give them a reason to click through (up to 155 characters’ max)
• Use your Keywords in the Description and in the Meta Tags
• Make your description stand out and unique from those of your competitors
• If you have an irresistible offer, include it here
• Don’t stuff your meta tags with a whole bunch of keywords hoping to get lucky
• Stick to your focus keywords (relevant to that individual page) within the meta tags
Headings + H1/H2/H3 tags for SEO
There are typically “6 levels” of Heading tags which would be appended to a heading, and they range from H1 (the top title) to H2 (subheadings), right through to H6. They give context and purpose to the people reading your content and also tell Google that this is something important for it to consider as part of its indexing.
• Use your focus keywords in your headings
• Structure your headings in a skeleton architecture that makes sense
• Make headings for your users (humans), not just for Google
Off-Page SEO
One of the ways in which Google determines how high a particular page or website should be ranked is in their “pagerank” algorithm. PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is. The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites. To get the most from this consider using the following:
Online Directories
Your first point of call is registering your business on as many business directories as possible, these are easy links to obtain and demonstrate that you have a legitimate business.
Here is a list of the Top 15 Australian Directories here (This is an example of internal linking we’ve done).
There are lots of directories available but be careful of ones trying to sell links. Google can and will penalise you if it sees your trying to manipulate your rankings in unethical and dodgy ways.
Link Building
The more links you have pointing to your website – the better you’ll do.
Not all links are made equal, having links from high-authority websites like Forbes or News.com.au will add more weighting to the link. Whilst getting links from smaller, less authoritative websites will give you less weighting (or “link juice”, as we call it in the SEO world).
It doesn’t just stop there; there are two types of links – “DoFollow” and “NoFollow”. This instructs Googles crawler bots whether or not follow the link, and therefore to give “link juice” to the link.
If you’re looking for a little encouragement on how to find links, use some of those SEO tools on your competitors and look at their top 10 backlinks – build your list, and then go after those websites, figure out how you’re going to get a link there too.
Social Media
Some quick wins can be made here, along with boosting your authority with Google and getting some backlinks (although most will be NoFollow).
Whilst there are so many social media platforms out there now, we recommend focusing on the biggest and most relevant.
Facebook – Setup a company page on Facebook, make sure you complete all the details an have a link pointing back to your website.
LinkedIn – Setup a personal professional profile, and also a business page here. Link back to your website.
Instagram – Setup a business page and link back to your website.
Twitter – Setup your business twitter page and link back to your website.
Make sure that all of your profiles are complete, have lots of relevant information and have all your correct details amongst them all.
Technical SEO
The technical SEO part is the most difficult and unless you have in depth knowledge and access to your servers and website code, this can often be beyond everyday scope. This is the sort of area that a specialist in an agency would be looking after for you.
HTTPS
In basic terms, HTTPS means the server is secure and has a security certificate – Google penalises websites without HTTPS.
They will tank your “ranking” if you do not have a SSL certificate, as Google want websites to be trustworthy.
Either ask your hosting provider, or we will set this up for you (message us for our SEO services).
Mobile Ready
Your website must be mobile ready, it must render on mobile devices, and automatically size itself on different devices.
In 2019, Google announced that Mobile First indexing was in play.
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2019/05/mobile-first-indexing-by-default-for.html
You can do this yourself if you have the technical skills, you can even buy “templates” which have most of the design work done for you, or you can get a professional to do this for you.
Improve Speed
Google also favours fast websites, that are optimised for desktop and mobile speed.
Google announced that were considering website speed as part of their “ranking factor”, and it’s pretty important.
So much so, that Google have also provided their own free tool for testing your website and seeing how fast Google believes it is: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
Get Help with Your Website SEO
There’s a lot to do for SEO, we’ve given you the information to get started yourself.
Or, if it’s too much, and you don’t think you have the time and commitment to make it work.
We’d love to help you (it’s what we do best).
And get really good results whilst doing it.
Get in touch and lets see what we can do to help you get the most from your website.
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