If you run your own site but aren’t reaching the right audience, how can you touch up your SEO skills?
SEO, or search engine optimisation, is a tool designed to increase traffic and improve traffic quality, in relation to a website. Basically, when correctly utilised, SEO should target your select audience in high numbers.
If you are just starting out, or you want to brush up on your skills, there are a number of ways you can approach this.
Learn the language
As with any new skill, the very first thing you should do is learn the key terminology. How can you expect to understand the way a tool works if you don’t have an understanding of the fundamentals?
Boxes to fill such as the URL (the web address), backlinks (links from other websites to yours), and seasonal trends (calendar-based events), are relatively straightforward.
But the point of SEO is to tailor a site to a specific group, both to target a key demographic and increase the site’s ranking and credibility. For this reason, sometimes the basics don’t cut it and we need an in-depth knowledge of how the tools works, or rather, how we can make them work for us.
A quick google search will define terminology you are unsure of, but a handy resource to bookmark is the Moz SEO Glossary of Terms which covers the full range of key words and phrases.
WordPress plug-in tool Yoast also offers an alphabetised, comprehensive guide to navigating SEO language.
Boost your rank
Though it may seem overly technical at points, the end goal of SEO optimisation is clear, you need to position your website as close as possible to the top of an organic query search.
Many factors dictate how a site might rank, including, content relevance, evidence of trustworthy backlinks and mobile optimisation status.
To boost your rank, you need to know where you are currently positioned. This can be achieved with SEO tracking tools such as Semrush, which allows you to see where your keywords are positioned, as well as construct a historical ranking database to help isolate trends.
If you have utilised free trials and don’t currently have the space in your budget for professional software, you can manually search for the position of your page and keywords using Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). However, this can be incredibly time consuming and often ineffective as changes occur quickly in real time.
Backlinko has a useful piece detailing the basic and more advanced features of SERPs, for anyone considering this route for their SEO road map.
Quality is key
As with anything you try your hand at, it’s important to prioritise quality over quantity. You can do the research, select the optimum keywords, tick every box, but if your content is weak, in terms of style and relevance, then it won’t make an impact.
An easy way to up your relevance score is to skillfully insert key phrases into the headline and subtitles. Additionally, alongside the standard, necessary content, include attention grabbing, new information, that will set you apart from other site owners within similar fields of interest.
One of the metrics used by Google SERPs to decipher the ranking of content is in the quality of the material and backlinks, so if you think only 30pc of what you have written is good, then do away with the other 70pc.
Over time, you will build a reputation for delivering high-quality content, likely acquiring and retaining an audience base that grows with the site.
That’s not to say you should allow your site to stagnate. Regular uploads are necessary to keep your target audience engaged. It’s all about standing comfortably at that intersection between credibility and consistency.
Be engaging
Snippets of URLs and content meta descriptions can appear in search results and are often used to determine if a site is relevant enough to click on. For this reason, make your URL and description concise and engaging to convince the user that your site is an expert source for their topic.
For the SEO proficient looking for a challenge, Google Search Central is a convenient resource that can show site owners how to structure their data and explains the benefit of breadcrumbs to help users navigate your site.
There are many advantages to learning to SEO skills. If you feel like you know nothing or you know everything, you’re probably wrong. There will always be something new to learn, so start now and see how you can boost traffic and engagement with your content.
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