Web Page Optimisation Is Essential To Be Found In Search Results (SERP).
Adelaide businesses are becoming more aware of the need to implement a SEO plan. As fewer people pick up the Yellow Pages and turn to the Internet to search for businesses, products and services, small businesses are realising they need to be found in Google Search.
Many businesses first attempt at placing themselves online fails, for two reasons. First, they look for the quickest, easiest and cheapest option and secondly they don’t want to participate in the process.
Quick and easy is how you bake a cake, it’s not how you build or operate a business is it?
The cheapest of anything is never the best option, and think what would happen if you left your business for a year without your input.
As the business owner, you know more about how your business operates, the products and services you offer, it’s history and future plans, so your input and involvement is vital to your business website’s SEO success.
There’s a lot of misinformation surrounding search engine optimisation (SEO). So here are two truths you need to come to terms with, before you start a SEO plan.
SEO is not a one-time, one-off event. Google states it makes more than one change to it’s search algorithm a day, every day, that impacts on PageRank, which may impact on your position in search results if nothing is done.
There are no instant SEO results. SEO results take time, sometimes months before any results from SEO are seen and depend on many factors, including more than 200 ranking signals in Google’s Search algorithm.
This is particularly true for websites with a small number of pages, that are new to the world wide web.
A successful business is not created overnight. It takes doing things the right way, repeatedly, over a period of time to reach the top, and it is the same for ranking high in search engines such as Google.
Thinking IT has a proud history and record of helping Adelaide businesses reach the top of the first page in Google’s search engine results. There is no secret to our success either. Our methodology has always been to:
Do things the right way, first time, every time while treating every client the same, regardless of the size of their business or budget.
The following is the basis of how SEO experts from Thinking IT go about web page optimisation as part of an overall SEO plan.
When looking to optimise a web page, including an article posted to a blog, there are a number of factors to consider on-the-page, that are totally within our control. Note that no single factor will guarantee you high search engine ranking. All of the SEO factors need to be addressed for success.
On Page Search Ranking Factors
The following list of on-page ranking factors will help get each of your web pages high in SERP’s.
Meta Tags
Meta tags are a great way to provide search engines with information about a web page. Meta tags can be used to provide information to all sorts of clients, and each system processes only the meta tags they understand and ignores the rest.
Starting at the top of the page is the title. Titles, much like newspaper headlines, should grab your readers attention, without being ‘click bait’.
Your title should contain the major search term (keyword) the page is about. For Google, the length of your title should be no longer than 60 characters, including spaces. While technically not a meta tag, the title tag is often used in conjunction with the description meta tag. The contents of the title tag are generally shown as the title in search results and in the user’s browser at the top of the screen.Next, within your HTML code, you should have a meta description tag. This tag provides a short description of the page in 160 characters or less. In some situations this description is used as a part of the snippet shown in search engine search results. The description meta tag should also include major keywords.
Keyword meta tags are one of the most controversial aspects of SEO. Although not used by Google the way they were intended due to ‘keyword stuffing’ abuse, they may play a factor in the future. Regardless of any SEO benefit, keyword tags are useful for finding and displaying related pages, other pages with the same keywords, so for that reason alone they are worth including on a website page.
Research Keywords Used
Before writing the content, you should know what search terms, called keywords visitors to search engines use to find the content or subject matter you are about to write about. These keywords should be used in the title and description tags of your HTML code, and appear 1-2% of the time in the web pages content (anymore than that risks the page being rejected by search engines from appearing in SERP’s because of ‘keyword stuffing’).
Content Is King
If you only take one thing away with you when reading this article, remember this:
Good quality content, content that is well written, grammatically correct, with no spelling mistakes, that is well laid out will benefit your web page optimisation efforts more than any other SEO factor.All of the web pages content should be original. Unique content, information and images that are not found anywhere else on the web will be rewarded in search results pages. Conversely, content, including images that has been plagiarised or blatantly copied will be penalised severely and if there are other pages with duplicate content, adversely effect your entire website.
Provide a reason, layout can help with this, for visitors to spend more than a few seconds on your page. Graphs, charts, diagrams and info graphics, in addition to text and pictures make for a more appealing and interesting web page.
If you want your web page to be found for specific keywords, search terms, they have to appear in the text. As mentioned above, repeated no more that 1-2% of the total number of words on the page. Keywords should be used naturally within your sentences, so they make grammatical sense.
Breaking up text with headings, sub-headings and lists will make browsing an article easier for visitors. Proper HTML heading structure should be obeyed. One H1 heading, H2 headings with sub-headings using H3, H4 and so on.
A web pages ‘readability factor’ is growing in importance, as it should, especially for when your web page is being viewed on smaller sized screens and smart mobile phones. Your text should be laid out with headings and sub-headings, using a font large enough for all people to read, with links and buttons, easy to click on deliberately and not by mistake.
Supply Answers To Frequently Asked Questions For The Topic You Are Writing About
Many people have questions concerning the subject matter you are writing about, so anticipate those and include the answers. There are many different ways of handling questions and answers. The best way is to include a list of questions that link to the answer further down the page. Another method is to use ‘drop-down-accordion’ style questions with answers displayed ‘on-click’.
After A New Website Design That Ranks?
Whether you’re looking at upgrading or starting from scratch, provide services or have products you’d like to sell online, Thinking IT can design a stunning website for your business and make sure it ranks at the top of all search engine result pages (SERP).
After discussing your goals and analysing what you require, Nigel will be able to let you know exactly what the costs will be to meet your unique needs.
At Thinking IT, we can handle everything to make your online presence a success. From photography & graphic design services to copywriting your pages & website’s blog, set up automated email campaigns & look after your social media or PPC marketing.
