Billions of people turn to the internet every day to find the products, services, and answers they need, so you need to make sure those browsers can come into contact with your content. In our increasingly digital age, the success of your business depends on it being found (and being found easily!) online.
If your site’s SEO is more MIA than AOK, you’ll need to whip it into shape. Pronto.
Improving your organic SEO isn’t a quick fix. But invest the time or money into your online presence, and your site will soon blossom into the sale-bagging badass you need it to be.
Here are my top three ways to boost SEO rankings:
There’s no getting away from it; you need to create great content to rank well. To find your site sitting on the first page or two of a Google search, you’ll need a decent amount of engaging and useful copy. Adding regular, quality blog articles to your website is the way to do this, and it’ll work wonders for your SEO.
Blog articles about what? I hear you ask. Cover topics your ideal customer would find valuable, interesting, and address a potential problem or question about your business. In other words, give them something useful.
By educating your audience, you’ll also become seen as an authority in your field. So along with racing up the rankings, you’ll be building trust and gaining loyalty too.
As well as adding new content to your site, identify any existing content that’s not pulling its weight and update it. This low-performing content could be pages on your site that are old, generate little organic traffic or have a word count that’s too low.
Give any content that doesn’t perform well for you a good ol’ glow up. Update those powerless pages with new keywords and engagement-generating content, and you’ll give your site a new lease of life.
Optimising your content will help it feature higher on the search engine results pages. Just make sure you’re optimising for the best keywords and creating each page of content around a primary keyword and additional secondary keywords.
There are loads of keyword research tools out there, but if you’re looking for a free option Google Keyword Planner is the way to go. Or, if you intend to outsource, you might be lucky enough to come across a clever copywriter who can take care of your keyword research as well as writing your content.
SEO-friendly content is all about balance. So remember to use everyday, conversational language while naturally sprinkling in those keywords. And whatever you do, don’t keyword stuff.
Cramming a page with keywords results in an awful read, and Google really won’t thank you for it. Instead, sprinkle in synonyms along with keywords to reduce repetition.
Did you know that more internet searches now happen on smartphones than on desktops? 55% of all searches, to be exact, according to the latest figures from Broadband Search. So your site needs to be mobile-friendly and responsive across all devices—phones, tablets and desktops.
Honestly, there’s nothing more cringey than landing on a site in 2021 that isn’t mobile-friendly. It’s such a turn-off. Sadly, a non-responsive website can only result in one thing—your prospect rushing off to find comfort in the arms of your competitor.
Make sure your site is mobile-friendly, and your customers and Google will love you for it.
As more and more people spend their time scrolling on their smartphones, you may want to consider a mobile-first approach when you have a new website. This means prioritising how your design, layout and content will look on a small screen.
So there you have it, a few inital ways to improve how your site ranks in search. Of course, there are other things you can do to improve your SEO, but working on the three above will give you a solid start.
Good luck—and I look forward to finding you in a Google search soon.
Article Written by Laura Cyples
This is a guest post by Laura Cyples — creative copywriter, content strategist, and owner of We Are Word Nerds.
We Are Word Nerds have been writing wallet-opening words since 2015. The Staffordshire-based copywriting agency specialises in SEO copywriting, content strategy & powerful copy for print.
You can contact Laura direct at laura@wearewordnerds.co.uk