With websites, the main goal is to attract the correct traffic to your website. By ranking highly on search engine results pages, like Google. Getting to the top of Google requires a lot of time and effort, especially without the use of Google Ads. It won’t just happen overnight. Getting to the first few pages of Google search results is a fundamental requirement for businesses. Getting on there is a challenge because there isn’t a lot of spots.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the key to ranking highly on Google. It takes time to perfect your website SEO. Taking you anywhere from a few weeks to months on end to climb to the top of the Google ranking system. Even then, you need to maintain that spot.

Ranking high regionally is not as much of a challenge as trying to rank nationally. This is because there aren’t as many options to choose from. Especially if you are targeting a certain city, town, or postcode as there is less competition to get to the areas top ranks. If you part of a niche industry with few competitors, then you can rank higher much faster even in a matter of a few weeks. But ranking highly nationally is always going to be a bit of a challenge.

Where should you start?

Keyword research is possibly the most vital task when it comes to SEO. As you need to find out what keywords people are using to search for the products and services you offer. A good idea when starting out is to research what other websites that are in your sector are ranking for. This can be done by searching the keywords that your field use. Even just searching a certain phrase and seeing if any relevant sites appear.

Although ranking highly for a keyword can feel nice and you start to think you’re getting somewhere, if this keyword doesn’t bring you high-quality leads or conversions, then it’s pointless.

There is a wide array of websites that can be used to help you when researching keywords. For example, websites like Stackline, SEMrush, and Google’s keyword planning tool can all be useful. The keywords you focus on should be the ones that will equate to sales and new customers. Not just people searching for information as this could be anything, from students researching to competitors also keyword searching.

Several runners on the start of a track ready to commence the race.

You need Good information, not just keywords

A few years ago, it was good enough to just have keywords in your page copy to get high rankings. But now that search engines like Google are more sophisticated, it doesn’t work like that anymore. To reach the higher ranks of Google search engine results pages now, your information now has to be tight and to the point, from Google’s point of view, they are looking for straightforward and relevant information to take back to the user.

Google rewards websites that answer questions and target answers to the questions they believe the user wants to know.

Google and other search engines on the internet love to be able to see information and crawl through the hierarchy of information. This means having a clear menu, categories, and links to corresponding pages with relevant copy.

On-site SEO

On-site SEO is giving the end-user and Google a good experience. Where searches are answered with the right content. You do this by making it as easy as possible with a good copy. To achieve this, you will need:

  • A URL that is clear and concise and arranged in an order that follows a sensible pattern
  • Meta descriptions that contain more details on the page made interesting and persuasive to the user, and normally includes 1-2 keywords
  • A title tag that includes what the page is about and the search term
  • Alt tags on images containing what the picture is showing and a keyword
  • Content on the pages which has enough relevant information and contains quality wording but is concise and to the point

As you add new information onto the website or blog posts, even when new pages are created, the new information should be submitted to Google using your search console and XML sitemap.

The click-through rate is often used by Google’s algorithm to determine how relevant your page is to search queries. Therefore, it is important to share information and content regularly to help generate leads and clicks for your website, as the more clicks you have the higher it ranks because Google will determine this content is popular and valuable.

For Google to determine the value of your content there needs to be a large volume of content, especially on new websites. This is why you mustn’t expect your page to rank naturally if you only have a simple, 4-page microsite. A small website like this probably won’t rank naturally unless your page is unique or being sponsored or advertised by celebrities and TV channels to a large following, which creates a large volume of users. Using that scenario your page could increase in ranking due to the CTR effect.

Most websites and companies have to grow their ranking and increase their SEO naturally, by adding information, answering questions and writing, and sharing content including blogs and articles.

Outreach

On-site SEO is important, but it is only the start. Attention is required to create and cement the reputation and authority of your website. This comes from being linked to highly regarded websites and blogs. This process is called outreach, which involves forming links with these websites and blogs to, basically, share their success.

If some decent websites and users link your website (that don’t have to be from your market), Google will likely increase your ranking as they will deem your site more worthy.

At Castle, our SEO team can fully optimise your website so that it ranks at the top of Google’s search engine results pages. We can develop a strategic SEO campaign to ensure you are ranking for all the key search terms in your sector. If you need help with your website SEO, contact us at info@castle.co.uk or 0151 372 1234.