If you are new to the world of digital marketing, things can seem a little overwhelming at first. It seems there are so many things to remember, and even more unspoken tricks of the trade that give some companies and agencies a certain edge. But there are no special secrets to getting your SEO done right. With just a little bit of research and a lot of effort and practice, you could be running your own digital marketing campaign like a professional in no time.
All you need to do is wrap your head around these easy to remember tips, and keep doing research to find out as much as you can about how to run an SEO campaign as effective as your business. So if you would like to know the professional, insider secrets on getting the most out of your SEO efforts, keep reading. You won’t be sorry that you did. If you are already accustomed to the digital marketing world, then perhaps you will find some juicy, previously unlearned information in these words, or perhaps even an important reminder of where your efforts should be spent in your campaign.
Create a user-friendly and responsive website
Let’s start with step one. When professionals speak of digital advertising, their main concerns are with the production and maintenance of an informative, relevant and easy to use website that will reach the highest degree of your company’s target audience. But there are a few things to bear in mind from the get go, when creating a website for your business, or having one made by a web marketing agency in London.
- Responsiveness
When we talk about responsiveness, we mean the ability for a site to adapt itself depending on which device it is being viewed from. Tablets, smart-phones and computers all use different dimensions when viewing websites, so it is beneficial to have a site created that can adapt itself according to these changes. You are not only targeting viewers who use one kind of device, so not having a responsive site will certainly alienate a large portion of your target audience. So avoid doing this by making your site responsive.
- Loading Times
Your average internet user is impatient, so impatient in fact that even the slightest extension in page loading times can have a devastating effect on your page’s usefulness. On average, a visitor will wait no longer than 5 seconds for a page to load, so you want to be sure to keep this number down as low as possible. Avoid using extremely high quality images and videos or animations that will slow your site’s loading time to ensure that your visitor’s experience is as smooth as it can be.
- User Experience
You’re not just making websites for robots, you want to make sure that all your human visitors (those that are not Google crawlers) have the best experience as possible when logging onto your site. This means all your information must be relevant, you don’t use any black hat techniques like keyword spamming, and your website is easy to navigate. Also don’t forget about the loading times. Having customers constantly leaving your website can have terrible consequences for its ranking.
- Your bounce-rate
A high bounce rate is the result of too many viewers leaving your website soon after they have landed on it. This action tells Google that the visitor was unhappy with the content on your site, which instructs them to penalise you in terms of rankings. Since Google wants to provide the best and most relevant content to its users, they take the bounce rate very seriously. So keep it as low as possible for better rankings.
Managing your Content correctly
Creating useful, relevant and natural content is probably the most important part of any of your SEO efforts. It is here that you can make use of your keywords and tagging to drive traffic to your site, but besides that, it gives your visitors a reason to stay on your website. Visitors use your content to judge the credibility of your business, find out more information about you and make informed decisions based on purchases of products or services. The more you tell them, the more comfortable they’ll feel dealing with you.
Besides that, consistent and relevant content also helps Google explore your site and get it ranking higher. A website that is always actively posting new and relevant content looks active and busy in a search engine’s eyes, which can only be good for you.
So take some time to ensure that you are creating and posting quality content on a regular basis, and most of the hard SEO work will be done.
Internal and external linking
Links are like sign poles that direct search engine crawlers around your site, and they are also used to determine the overall authority of your website with regards to your industry. But let’s break them down into two parts; internal and external links.
- Internal linking
Many developers make the mistake of linking everything to their homepage, and only there. While it is obviously essential to have links to your landing page, effort should be put into spreading links further throughout the website. If a link can be found on just about every page, it makes the site more navigable for users, but it is the search engine crawlers that rely on this the most to map out and index your site. If you make the job easier for the crawlers, you will likely get a welcomed ranking boost in the process.
- External linking or back links
You need to establish some form of authority for your site to be taken seriously and start ranking favourably. The best way to do this (in fact it is essential) is to build up a profile of quality backlinks to your site. Backlinks occur when other websites link to yours in one way or another. This can be done by reposting content, or just having a link directly to your pages.
Often enough, interesting content that is of high quality will attract backlinks from other sites that have found your posts useful, which is just one more reason to keep creating good content.
It may also be necessary to get hold of website administrators and ask them if they wouldn’t mind linking to your site. This is common practice in the SEO world, one that has generated great ranking results time and time again.
Be sure though to keep your backlink profile neat and tidy. Opt for backlink audit services if you need professional help dealing with unwanted links, and maintaining the ones that are good for your website.
Take advantage of social media
Social media platforms like Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest can go a long way in boosting your site’s ranking. You should take the time to set up and maintain profiles on these platforms where you can post regular content, and start public discussions about your company, website or industry that will attract attention to your website.
Social Media platforms are often free to use in this way, and it will really help you to establish a secure brand that links back to your website and gives it all the link juice it needs. They also allow you to get actively engaged in your community, further strengthening your marketing efforts.
Consider web ethics
Of course, in any industry, there are collections of ethics to consider; and SEO is no different. Take care to abide by practices that develop a trusting relationship between you and your audience. Make sure that your website and all your customers’ details are secure. Avoid using black-hat techniques to up your ranking, and always be honest in the content you produce. Also be sure that there are no sneaky techniques being used in your sites to farm leads and customer information, or contact forms that automatically subscribe viewers into something they are not aware of. These sorts of practices leave a bad taste in customers’ mouths, so for continued trust between you and them, it is best to avoid doing anything dodgy.
Your SEO checklist
Just in case there was anything you missed, here is a checklist to help you along:
- User friendly and responsive website development:
- Make it responsive.
- Lower your loading times with lower quality media.
- Make it user-friendly.
- Keep an eye on your bounce rate.
- Your link profile:
- Be sure to spread your links around your website for the best possible link juice.
- Build and maintain a profile of quality backlinks from good websites.
- Get social
- Use social media platforms like Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to get involved in the community, create brand awareness and build a platform for spreading links.
- Be ethical
- Always use the best practices to build your rating slowly. Remember, ratings that are built up too quickly, can just as quickly be taken down.
Getting SEO right can be a little challenging, but by getting the discussed basic concepts down, you’ll be well on your way to a successful campaign.