We are often asked about the basics of SEO so we thought it might be helpful to come up with the top 5 key essentials needed if you want your business website to feature highly in the search results:

On-site Conversion Rates

The key to increasing your onsite conversion rates is to make sure that your website attracts targeted traffic that will produce high quality leads.  You need to try and keep site visitors engaged. As always it will make this more achievable if your web pages have relevant, engaging and interesting content that adds value to the reader.

Many websites are too self centred, with content entitled “About Us”, “Our People”, “Our History” – whilst such content can add credibility to your offering there needs to be a balance.  Remember the bottom line is the site visitor only really needs to know what you can do for them.  Our advice would be to make your content reader focused.

Content Sharing

All good websites make it easy for their content to be shared by visitors with others.  A good example would be adding social media icons to allow people to share your content on their social media networks.  As stated before all your content should be relevant for the user and add value to them.  It should also be written in a style and language to appeal to the target reader you are aiming to attract.

Other types of content that are share-able among users includes PDF files and other downloads. These are ideal for providing users with additional, perhaps more detailed or technical, information without clogging up your website with hundreds of pages of dull text.

As a general rule all websites should be easy to read, easy to navigate and not be overly complicated or cluttered with complex detail.

Adding a blog to your website allows you to create new content regularly which will encourage site visitors to return to your site to see what is new on a frequent basis.  It will also encourage the search engines to return to your site on a regular basis which will improve your SEO as it is well known that the major search engines always give priority to new content over old dated content.

Have an Up-To-Date On-Page Strategy

Many site owners see Keyword Research, Page Titles, Page Descriptions etc. as a one-off exercise.  Successful website owners don’t.

Consistent analysis of your keywords and related Meta data, alt tags and the like is one of the best ways you can improve your current search engine rankings and your overall SEO performance.

Duplicate Content

In the aggressive world of SEO, the last thing you want is for your site to be penalised by Google even short-term.  Your site will quickly fall down the rankings and could be suspended altogether! One of the most common ‘own goals’ we see is duplicate content.

Each page in your website should be unique, both in terms of the web page content and the web page Meta data. Google Webmaster Tools can help you to identify if you have any duplicate Meta Data and once you know you can make the necessary changes.

Website Speed

With the wide array of open-source development programs available these days, many website owners find themselves with site loading time problems because of plug-in issues. Not only is a slow loading site a poor user experience it also has a negative effect on your SEO. There are plenty of excellent web hosting companies out there who can make sure you have the right hosting solution for your platform and development needs.  Cheap and cheerful is not the right way to go for a business website – it is fine for a personal blog but not recommended for any commercial website as the potential downtime and slow load times can lead to lost revenues.  Cheap hosting is a false economy.

Hopefully these quick tips will set you on the right course but if you need any further help please leave a comment below or call us on 01293 822755