What is SEO?
Updated: Oct 22, 2021
What even is SEO? And how can you improve it? Check out our comprehensive guide to improving your website’s SEO below…
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) refers to the process of encouraging search engines, such as Google and Bing, to display your website results in response to user/search enquiries.
Search engines want to provide the most relevant and trustworthy information to their users. They achieve this by crawling sites and reviewing the information availability, indexing this in its ‘virtual library’ to refer to later. When a search enquiry is made, the search engine analyses pages in its library and ranks them, displaying the most useful sites based on its algorithm results.
In simple terms: Better SEO = Higher Search Engine Ranking
5 Simple Ways to Organically Improve Your SEO
Improving your SEO involves a variety of tools and methods, ranging from quick and simple, to laborious and technical. Professional web designers and copywriters are best suited to help with your SEO, as they know the tips and tricks of the trade; however, there are a few things you can do yourself to help organically improve your site’s SEO…
1) Review Your Copy
Your website copy should include industry-specific key words that users are likely to search in order to discover your products/services. The more relevant key words you can include, the higher the chances of your website being picked up by search engines. Similarly, SEO settings such as your URLs, page titles and meta tags all have an impact on how findable your business is; so, it is well worth ensuring that these are worded correctly.
Top Tip: Your page titles should include your business’ name, a brief description of your speciality/services and your location/area covered; all separated by a vertical bar pipe ( | ).
Meta [Page] Title example for a dog groomer business based in Hereford:
Pampered Pooch | Dog Groomer | Hereford
Meta [Page] Title example for a dog training business based in Edinburgh:
The Canine Teacher | Collie Specialist Dog Trainer | Edinburgh
2) Name Your Images Naming your image files increases your chances of appearing in search results, as search engines don’t just crawl the text, they craw the images too! You should also edit your image’s alt text to describe your image to Google i.e., change your logo’s alt text to “Pampered Pooch Logo”.
Top Tip: Don’t use spaces when naming your images; instead, try using dashes or underscores to separate words. These are easier for search engines to read and analyse.
3) Optimise Your Page Headings It is vitally important to optimise the headings in your website copy. Main headings, for example Pampered Pooch should always be formatted as a H1; whereas sub headings, for example About Us should always be formatted as a H2. Search engines find H1 and H2 text easier to read and analyse and are therefore more likely to display these results in relevant key word searches.
4) Start a Company Blog Organically improve your SEO by uploading fresh and regular content in the form of a blog. Search engines favour websites that are regularly updated with interesting content – what better way to do this than a blog?! Try and think about what your target audience may be searching for, and what you can bring to the table that your fellow competitors don’t. For example, is you are an expert in your industry, your technical knowledge of a subject would make for a great blog post, as customers that search for specific key words and phrases mentioned in your blog are more likely to stumble across your site.
5) Create Hidden Pages Search engines favour sites with more content, as the information provided is more likely to be useful to its users. Try creating some hidden pages just for SEO purposes. These pages won’t appear in your website’s navigation – they simply help to strengthen your SEO. Therefore, they don’t need to have fancy designs or interesting graphics; the focus here is on the copy and relevance of information provided. The key here is to research, research, and research some more. Try to cram in as many key words and phrases as possible, without compromising on the quality of the copy.
For example, if you were to create a hidden SEO page named Dog Groomers in Hereford, you could include a section on your location and areas you serve i.e., Hereford, Herefordshire, and surrounding neighbourhoods, before delving into your dog grooming services in more detail.
Specialist SEO Support from Melissa’s Copy
Here at Melissa’s Copy, our friendly team have a wealth of experience in web design, copywriting, and SEO. If you’re looking to organically improve your SEO, feel free to drop us an email at melissascopy@gmail.com or book your free online consultation here. We would be happy to help!