7 Steps to perfecting SEO on your website content
Are you looking to DIY your content for your new website? While it’s my job to setup your website with best practise SEO in mind, it will be your job to make sure your website copy and content brings it’s A-game too. Lauren from Dash Agency is my go-to SEO guru, and she’s kindly popped together a detailed checklist so you know exactly how SEO works and how to incorporate it in your website content so Google know’s what you’re all about. Take it away, Lauren!
Are you wanting to launch your website in the strongest possible position so that your ideal clients can find it ASAP? Well, if you’ve been doing your research on how to achieve this, then you’ve definitely heard of SEO by now. Search Engine Optimisation is the practice of improving your website performance within the search engine result positions. But it might seem a little confusing by this stage as well. There’s a LOT of information out there, some conflicting, lots of it technical, and not all of it relevant for your current situation
I’m going to share with you today the 7 steps you need to know to optimise your website content correctly for launch, and this is going to be most beneficial for small business owners DIY’ing their own copy. By the end of this post you’ll understand basic on-page SEO, know the important elements to focus on and the next steps you need to take to ensure your website is found online by your searching customers!
1. Why You Need to Consider SEO for Your New Website
There are over 400 million active websites out there and Google’s mission is to sort through them all and deliver the best possible results to its searchers. Without incorporating SEO into your website, it’s very unlikely you will ever rank in the top results, especially on competitive and high-search volume keywords. There’s just too much competition online.
There are varying levels of SEO that can be performed. From best practice items that your web developer will have included during design and development, to these basic on-page items that I’m going to share with you today, through to on-going technical, content and link-building efforts that are performed by a SEO specialist and underpinned by a clear strategy.
Ensuring your website has at least basic optimisations when it’s first indexed by Google is literally putting your best foot forward and allowing you to start off strong online. It’s going to know how to categorise you, what your pages are about and which results you should show up on.
2. How to Perform Basic Keyword Research
Understanding what your customers are searching for online is the critical first step. You need to know what customers are searching for to understand where you need to show up. My first recommendation when it comes to keyword research is doing a big brain-dump. You know your business better than anyone, so start writing down all the things you would search to find your products or services online.
But we know that much of the time our customers are using different language or phrases to search. So, the next step is to jump onto Google (ideally using an Incognito Tab) and start doing some research… type your queries into the search tab and see what suggested searches start populating as you type, make note of those that are relevant to your business. Once you’ve brought up a search results page, look at the “People Also Ask” section and see what additional information you learn about your customers’ search patterns.
Ideally you want to be writing down “long-tailed keywords”, these are search phrases 3-4 words in length. Using longer keywords increases the relevancy of your site and your chances of ranking. Just think how many people search for the short-tailed variation of your business… they could be looking to get a job in that industry, want to learn to make it themselves, doing research for a project, etc. But when they type in a long-tailed keyword version, it’s much more specific and therefore the intent is higher. There’s usually less competition and higher CTR on long-tailed keywords as well.
Short-tailed: baby clothing
Long-tailed: cotton baby clothing online
3. How To Ensure Google Knows Each Page’s Purpose
Google only serves a page at a time within the results, so it needs to be able to clearly understand the purpose of each page on your website. For this reason, it is important to optimise each page individually, using different keywords across each page that are reflective of its information. If you use the same keywords repeatedly across your website pages, Google is not going to know which one is most relevant and this can negatively impact your chances of showing up.
What you want to do is write down your website pages, and then allocate the keywords you’ve come up with across each, as you can see in my example. This will ensure each page of your site is providing clear information to Google and is more likely to show up correctly in the results. Do keep in mind that your Home Page is the main page of your site and therefore will have the most important and broadest keywords.
4. Writing SEO-Friendly Page Content
As a best practice I like to have a minimum of 500 words on any main page across the site, this may be the Home page, About, Services etc. The level of content required will vary from business to business and depend on the complexity of your offerings and what your competitors are doing on their own sites.
For e-commerce websites, having a lower amount of content can be best, especially across category and product pages. But in cases where you have less content, you need to ensure that the content and metadata you do have is well optimised and clearly conveys the purpose the page.
When writing the content for each page, you need to write with both your customers and Google in mind. Make sure you’re talking about what your customers want to hear, answering their queries or explaining your USP compared to other businesses. Writing for Google adds another layer to this, and as a guideline I recommend aiming for 1% keyword density across each page. This means that you aim to mention the keywords you have allocated to that page at least 1% of the time (eg. 5 times for 500 words of content).
As you’re writing for humans firstly though, don’t overdo the use of keywords and work them in as naturally as possible. The reason you need to use these keywords within your content is because Google reads the copy of your page when indexing, and the repeated use of keywords drives home the purpose of the page and makes it clear where your page should rank.
Tip: try to use your keywords within the first 100 words of your page, this holds more sway for Google and really solidifies the page purpose.
5. Optimising Your Metadata for Best Results
Once you have written the content, don’t forget to complete the metadata for each page. This is another important on-page element which Google reads to understand your page content. The metadata refers to the Page Title, Meta Description & URL of the page – they are each data that provides information about other data (the page).
It’s also the information that is shown within the Google results, and so is your first touchpoint with potential customers. Use this opportunity to engage your reader and encourage them to click through. Doing a little bit of competitor research at this stage can be very helpful, what does their metadata say? How can you say something different and stand out to your readers?
For Squarespace sites you can very easily edit the metadata by clicking on the settings icon next to your page and then selecting ‘SEO’ as you can see below. Louise will implement this if it’s part of the project scope.
Aim to include your most important keywords for the page within both the Page Title & Meta Description. As both have a character limit, try to write to roughly the following lengths:
Page Title: 50-60 characters
Meta description: 150-158 characters
6. Including Internal Links to Prove Page Importance
Adding in internal links across your website helps to show Google which pages are of high importance to you and provides quick and easy navigation for site visitors as they read through your page. Internal links simply refer to hyperlinks within your content that redirect to another page.
These can be especially useful for service-based businesses, highlighting other services provided and linking straight through. It’s best to embed these internal hyperlinks onto your preferred keywords for the page you are linking to.
As a long-term strategy with any blogs you write as well, try to include internal links from the blog through to your home, product or service pages. This shows Google that the page you’re linking to is important to you and that you believe customers will benefit from this easy link straight through.
As a best practice only include 1 link per 500 words – but this is purely a guide and if your internal links are genuinely helpful for your readers, then you can use as many as necessary. But, be mindful not to overdo it and only link where it is most valuable for your reader. Too many links and you can confuse Google so that is marks down your page.
7. Building Trust with Google from the Get-Go
Expertise, Trustworthiness and Authoritativeness are all factors Google is looking for across your website to understand if you’re a suitable and safe site to deliver to its customers within the results. One way you can start off on the right foot is by including 3 simple elements in your website:
1 - Contact details
2 - Terms & Conditions
3 - Privacy Policy
Including these three items is the first step to displaying your Trust to Google. It’s going to Index this information and feel confident that you’re a legitimate business who will do the right thing by its users. Even with your contact information, try to include as much information as possible, ideally with direct contact details listed somewhere for customers. This can open you up to extra spam, so just be mindful of this and think about where you display this direct contact information within the site.
In Summary, You Can Easily Optimise Your Website so Google Knows Who You Are
As you can see there are many actions you can take to optimise your website on launch. However, there are over 200 ranking factors that Google considers when deciding which websites to serve in results, so this really is just the first step for your website. Think of it as building a strong foundation for your business online.
By now you will understand what you can do straight away to improve your chances of ranking sooner within results, helping to ensure your beautiful new website is actually seen by customers. From basic keyword research through to internal linking, you now understand essential optimisations and can act immediately on your own website.
It’s important to know though that for many businesses SEO is a longer-term marketing activity, and though having your best foot forward from launch is a brilliant starting position, it can take additional effort over a longer period to see your website reach top positions on important keywords. If you operate in a competitive niche or know that your main competitors online are big, established brands, consider reaching out to a SEO consultant to find out what your website requires to really perform.
For those that feel confident in making further basic optimisations to their website, you can find extra steps to perform in my SEO checklist, simply click here to download it.
About the Author
Lauren is the Director of Dash Agency, a digital marketing agency that focusses on providing holistic digital marketing services to businesses of all sizes. With extensive experience in Search Engine Optimisation, she’s passionate about educating business owners on the power of this incredible marketing tactic and breaking down the confusion and fear around it. She’s also about to become an Aunt and so was able to tie in her own research for this blog.
