SEO is something that can really make or break a business, whether you do SEO yourself or use a local SEO agency there are quicks wins that you may want to take a look into, to ensure that your SEO is performing as optimally as it should.

A common question we get asked is “isn’t SEO just about backlinks?”
The answer we give is always a resounding NO!

Sure, backlinks are important but that’s only a part of the picture and apparently to some SEO experts out there one of the 3 main factors when ranking well in Google is down to quality of backlinks.

Pointing backlinks to your website will only get you so far – especially if your on-site SEO isn’t as good as it could be.

Wait… So there’s onsite and offsite SEO?

Yes – Onsite SEO is all about getting your website optimised for SEO and to ensure when it gets backlinks that Google understands the relevance and gives you a boost forwards up the rankings.

Onsite SEO is often neglected and so when backlinks are pointed to your website they aren’t as effective as they could be.

Offsite SEO is your backlinks that point to you and the anchor text that they use to point to your website pages.

Let’s jump into some quick wins for both onsite and offsite SEO.

A list of quick SEO wins:

  • Meta Tags
  • Brand consistency
  • N.A.P.
  • Page inter-linking
  • Keyword Variations
  • LSI Keywords
  • Brokenlinks and page re-directs

Meta Tags

These are your title and description tags which tell users and Google about your website, what the page is about and often contain keywords. Having your keyword eg “web design Birmingham” in your title tag, especially the first words in your title tag will give you a small boost. Including your keyword, such as web design birmingham in your meta description if you don’t already will also give you a boost.

meta tag examples
Image copyright: Google

Remember to write your meta tags for humans as that’s who will be reading and clicking on them.

Title tags and descriptions are important as Google measures User Experiences on on page metrics such as click thru rates and dwell time, so ensure your title tags are relevant, clickworthy and deliver exactly what they say they will once a user has clicked on your search result.

Brand Consistency

Google loves brand terms and brand queries are a taken into account in the Google rankbrain algorithm. Typically your brand name will be in your title tag, as ours is ALT Agency our title includes our keyword and brand eg Web Design Birmingham |ALT Agency

Our brand name is used in all title tags, all mentions in the descriptions and body content, anywhere it appears including externally and on Google maps etc it is always written the same as ALT Agency.

N.A.P

Name, Address, Phone Number comes down to consistency. If your website is submitted to Google maps, Google Business and other directories then ensure that your brand name, address and phone number is the same across them all.

Even if you change address, its best to go through all existences of your incorrect address and ensure it matches the one that Google has listed on Google my business, this means your address on your contact us page and anywhere else much match the way Google has it written and spelt.

SEO NAP example
Image copyright: Google

As a bonus, once you are listed on Google maps – Add the Google map with your business location to your page as this is said to give a small local SEO boost.
Image copyright: Google

Just like this:

Image copyright: Google

Page inter-linking

This gave us one of the biggest boosts in terms of search engine positions gained once we decided to look into it properly and do it properly.

Quite simple it just involves linking from page content, blog articles etc to other relevant pages on your website.

For example, on our web development page we talk about web design and so link that to our web design page. On our eCommerce service page we talk about ecommerce platforms and link to our Magento service page as it’s all highly relevant. The interlinking to important pages allows Google to work out what’s important and so will understand and in theory rank your site better.

Keyword Variations

When doing page -interlinking you do not have to use exact match keywords such as “web developer Birmingham” as that is most likely to unnatural as your website should be written for users and not search engines.

You need a mix of anchor text so the most obvious type is exact match.

Exact match keywords contain only your keyword and link to a page such as “web design birmingham”

There are variations of this where you can include your keyword plus a little more text such as “our app development services”

There are other variations you an add in such as “view our portfolio” “click here to learn more about our service” and also just natural flowing text that may not even contain your keyword but is relevant to another page’s content so you can naturally link to it from there.
Sprinkle these keywords and variations of them throughout your page content.

Lets not forget that mobile usage is now also on the increase, the way we search voice queries is different to how we search on a desktop device for example.

LSI Keywords

Latent Semantic Indexing, what this does is it takes into account related keywords to your primary keywords that other people are searching for.

LSI keywords are very easily found: start typing your keyword into Google search and list of them will appear as you type, these are relevant keywords to your search and what Google associates your search term with, so adding these to your content will help with relevancy and help Google better understand your website.

You will also find LSI keywords at the bottom of a search results page that you can click on, feel free to sprinkle these across your websites content for relevancy.

LSI keywords for SEO example
Image copyright: Google

Broken links and page redirects

If you had broken links in the past on your website or changed one of your website pages urls, often for SEO reasons, then you likely set up what’s known as a 301 redirect over time you may set up multiple 301 redirects creating a chain.

The power passed on from page A to B to C gets weakened so the best thing to do is audit your 301’s and ensure that if you have any redirects set up form years ago that link to a redirected page to an even newer page to remove that middle step and 301 redirect page A straight to Page C rather than Page A to Page B to Page C as it loses some power.


Additional Resources
Looking for more? Then check out this handy resource below:
Local guide to ranking your medical practice on Google
Gauchaweb – Click to learn more from our friends across the pond

July 2018 Update:
Looking to learn more about selling on Amazon? Got a niche product you want to bring to market but dont know how? Then check out this Amazon case study here.

Further Reading:
What is SEO – from Digital M Pte Ltd
Local guide to ranking your medical practice on Google
Gauchaweb – Click to learn more from our friends across the pond