Search engine optimisation, or SEO for short, is a process of improving the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through search engines. Unlike paid ads and social media, SEO is focused completely on improving your website’s standing with search engines. In this guide, I will talk through the concept of SEO and the core components that make up this essential digital marketing strategy.
Table of Contents
What is SEO? A definition
SEO is about helping Search Engines (SEs) understand your website, the content you’ve added to it and whether they should present it to searchers who are using their services. SEO is about making minor modifications to your site that will improve your ranking with SEs. These small changes can all add up and create a better website for your users as well as for SEs. Firstly, understanding how search engines work is a good starting point.
How do search engines work?
There are three main steps when it comes to how search engines work to produce search engine results pages (SERPs):
- Crawling – A search engine must first be able to find that a web page/website exists. SEs ‘crawl’ the internet to find new web pages, which they may find through other links or because a website owner has specifically told the SE that they exist.
- Indexing – Once a SE knows that a page exists it can try to understand what the page is about. It will read the text, images, videos as well as the structure of the page to understand the context of the page.
- Serving – Once the SE has the above information, it can make a decision on whether your particular web page is relevant to the searcher’s query. Every time a user searches for something in a search engine query box, the SE will analyse millions of pages and websites in milliseconds to decide which results to show. For SEs, it’s all about presenting relevant content to their user base.
Based on this simple outline, you want to make your website crawlable, indexable and relevant to the right audience. This is the essential task of SEO.
Research for SEO Strategy
Before getting to work, the first thing that all marketing campaigns need is research and lots of it. Without research, you will not be able to put together a quality SEO strategy. Don’t skip this step.
Target Audience Research
You need to define who your target audience is. This is the case for all marketing campaigns and is just as important for an SEO campaign. If you don’t know the types of people that are interested in your services, you will not be able to build a marketing strategy that speaks to them.
When you learn about your target audience you come to understand:
- How they learn about new products and services
- What questions they have about services
- What difficulties they are facing
- The type of language they use
- The campaigns that will draw them to your website.
With this information, you can build an SEO strategy that will work for the target market and result in a much higher conversion rate.
Keyword research
Probably the most important aspect of SEO research is keyword research. Keywords are the words and phrases that users search for in SEs. As SEs are serving up SERPs for users based on their queries, it would be pertinent to know what those queries are. If you discover the terms people are searching for that relate to your business, you can optimise your site for them. So how do you do keyword research? Here are the basic steps:
1. Brainstorm
Use a mind-mapping session with colleagues to discuss which keywords you think are most important to your brand. This will likely be the names of your products and services or FAQs surrounding your services. By writing this list you’ll have a good basis for the next step.
2. Competitor keyword research
See which words competitors rank for by using your list of brainstormed keywords to see if they are showing up for these terms. You may also want to see which companies appear in SERPs for your brand terms to see if your brand profile needs optimising alongside your products and services.
3. Find related terms
Once you have a good list of essential keywords, you will want to look for related terms to determine your SEO plan. There are several ways to discover similar terms and phrases:
- Use Google’s autofill feature on the search bar. When you start typing your query you will usually be presented with several autocompleted queries. These are usually the most popular searches so they could be a key phrase you may want to target.
- When searching for a term, SERPs can also show additional queries within the page. Google features the ‘People also asked’ widget on many SERPs. These questions could also be keywords to target.
- Utilise keyword research tools to also find relevant keywords. Google has its own keyword planner but there are many other companies that have great tools too. Do a search for keyword research tools to find countless examples.
4. Learn about your audience and industry
To take keyword research to the next level, you should scour the internet for the interests and queries your target audience are engaged in. Forums, blogs and comment sections on various websites can all aid you in discovering users’ queries.
How to choose keywords and phrases
By this point, you should have a large selection of keywords in mind but that doesn’t mean these are the ones you should necessarily target. Here are some things to ask yourself when deciding which keywords to select as part of your SEO strategy.
1. Are these keywords relevant to your business and customers?
Just because people are asking about something frequently doesn’t mean it’s right for your business. Choose keywords that are relevant to your company’s goods and services.
2. How competitive is the keyword?
Let’s say you are a local computer repair company in Sheffield that also sells refurbished computers. If someone searches for ‘Computers’ which is a very popular term, it’s unlikely you’ll show in results because:
- This term is being targeted by larger companies with a bigger SEO budget
- The keyword is very generic and isn’t going to result in visits to your site from qualified consumers.
Instead, you would want to find terms that are less competitive and more relevant to your audience’s queries. Some examples could include; ‘buy refurbished laptop Sheffield’, ‘how to fix a cracked laptop screen’, ‘how to replace hard drive in laptop’.
As you can see, these terms are longer and more specific. They are known as long-tailed keywords. These are the types of keywords to focus on when you are just starting out on your SEO journey.
3. Can you produce content for these topics?
As we will discuss later on in this guide, content will be a key component of your SEO strategy. You, therefore, need to be able to produce content for your chosen keywords. These could be articles, FAQs or product pages.
Based on the above, ensure that the keywords you select are relevant to your audience. Be sure to use keywords that are regularly searched without being super competitive and that you can create engaging compelling content to target them. Keyword research takes practice and is something that should be re-examined frequently. Keyword research will determine your on-page SEO strategy as well as your content marketing strategy.
Competitor Comparison
Competitor analysis is not just about what keywords they rank for, it can be a way to develop all aspects of your SEO strategy.
Your Competitor comparison should include:
- Keyword Ranking – As above this will help you discover the words and phrases that you may want to target. But you should also see what keywords they don’t rank for. This can inform you where you may be able to make quick gains and dominate a particular segment of the market.
- Content analysis – What is their content strategy and who is competing in terms of content marketing. By finding competitors who have a strong content strategy and are ranking well, you can understand what types of content you need to produce and how frequently you should post this type of content.
- Backlink analysis – You can monitor who is linking to your competitors’ sites. This will allow you to spot any potential backlinks you can make, and be the basis for building a successful off-page SEO plan.
Website Analysis
Analysing your existing website will allow you to build a comprehensive SEO strategy for your on-page SEO, technical SEO and content marketing strategy. SEs crawl and index your site based on many different factors so you want to ensure that you are presenting your best to the world. An analysis of your website can:
- Pinpoint technical SEO problems
- Identify missing on-page SEO information
- Analyse the speed of your site
- Provide an analysis of traffic acquisition and backlink profile.
- Point out design and user-experience issues
Coupled with your keyword research, audience analysis and competitor comparison, your website analysis is an essential component in starting your SEO journey. If you would like to invest in an SEO audit, I provide this as a stand-alone service or as part of my monthly SEO packages. See my SEO services page for more information.
SEO Research Resources
SEO Tactics and Techniques
You now know what SEO is and the starting research you’ll need to inform your strategy. We can now discuss what SEO tactics and techniques you will need to create a comprehensive SEO campaign. I have deep-dive content on each element of SEO so look for the additional information links to find out more.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO is the practice of optimising individual web pages in order to rank higher on SERPs. The On-page refers to both the content and code of a page as well as design aspects and is about providing relevant web pages to searchers on SEs.
What does on-page include?
When done correctly, On-page SEO utilises relevant keywords in quality, relevant content for the website’s audience. It also includes modifying technical aspects of a page to allow SEs to crawl and index a page correctly. Furthermore, on-page content is about creating a great user experience for website visitors.
Why is it important
On-page SEO is important because the different elements have been specifically identified by SEs as being a way to improve ranking. On-page SEO improves search engines’ understanding of the website and this results in a better ranking on SERPs. When you are in a better position on a SERP you will garner more traffic and when done correctly, this traffic will be from qualified leads. Improving the user experience will allow users to move through the site with ease and will result in a higher conversion rate. On-page SEO is an essential element of your entire SEO strategy.
Learn more about On-page SEO
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO is a tactic primarily focused on building links to your website from other digital sources. Unlike other SEO techniques, off-page SEO is focused on how your brand is perceived by SEs and users in the wider world of the internet.
What does Off-page SEO include?
Off-page SEO is about creating a quality link profile, which essentially means getting other websites to hyperlink to your website. This can be through blogs, press releases, directories, social media platforms and influencer marketing. It’s not just about quantity though as there are many rules that control which links can add to your overall site authority. Link building is a subtle art form and should be undertaken with care. However, when done correctly it can dramatically improve your website’s domain authority and ranking.
Why is it important
Off-page SEO is important because it is specifically a SEs ranking factor. However, improving your ranking is not the only benefit of a good off-page SEO campaign. When you gain links from elsewhere on the web, it can improve brand awareness, gain referral traffic to your site and result in an improved conversion rate.
Learn more about Off-page SEO
Content Marketing
Content marketing is a marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract new qualified customers to a website. It can also help you create meaningful engagement with existing customers and turn them into brand ambassadors.
What does content marketing include?
Content marketing includes any piece of content you create to entertain, inform or inspire your audience. This can consist of written, visual or audible content and this can be distributed either on your own website, other people’s websites, through social media channels or any other marketing campaigns.
Why content marketing is important
Content marketing is important because it allows your business to reach a more qualified audience and improve your visibility as a brand. It can help you build authority in your industry and develop trust from your customers. Content marketing improves engagement leading to a dedicated audience and further reach through social shares and word of mouth.
Learn more about content marketing
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is a technique that focuses on optimising a website specifically for search engines. When technical SEO is performed accurately it will allow SEs to more easily crawl and index a website.
What does it include?
Technical SEO covers site architecture and technical content improvements. It also includes optimising a website and its pages for mobile devices. Speed is another important ranking factor that comes under technical SEO.
Why is it important
Technical SEO is important because, without it SEs would be unable to crawl and index your site accurately. If SEs are unable to index a site properly, they will not show it on SERPs
Learn more about Technical SEO
Start your SEO Campaign
I hope you now have a more thorough understanding of what SEO is and can see why it is an important part of any digital marketing strategy. If you would like help with any element of SEO or need the full suite of services, I am here to help. Get in touch with me today and let’s see how we can grow your business together.
For a little bit more about me, my name is Lorna Middleton, and I am a freelance marketing consultant that helps ethical organisations grow without compromising their ethics. I work with companies, charities and social enterprises to expand their brand awareness through SEO, content, copy and website improvements. My focus is always on providing valuable digital services which are ethical, inclusive, accessible and eco-friendly. I consider the ethics of marketing first and foremost and create a plan which improves your brand without harming people or planet.
If you care about doing business in an ethical and environmentally conscious way, we could be a great fit together. Get in touch, and let’s grow your organisation.