Your sole aim when doing Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is to get more people to your website or blog. You will need to consider keyword analysis, written content, keyword placement, the flow of your writing and your audience to achieve the best SEO results.
What Type of Readers are You Looking For?
Before you start your SEO campaign, consider the types of readers that you want to attract. Start with the end in mind and aim your SEO campaign at your intended audience. The type of reader that you want to attract will affect the tone of your content and the keywords that you use.
If you are selling children’s clothing, for example, you will have a different market than if you have a picture framing company.
The children’s clothing website will be primarily aiming their campaign towards the purchasers of children’s clothing. The highest percentage of purchasers will be mums, however prospective purchasers will also include dads, aunties, grandparents and other relatives and friends.
The picture framing business will be selling a service. They will also possibly be supplying picture frames made to order along with ready-made frames.
While the children’s clothing website will mainly have sales direct from the website, the picture framing business will have more phone and email contact with customers needing advice and quotations.
Time Spent on SEO
When you are spending time on DIY SEO you may be wasting resources that could be better spent on customer service, sales or management. Hiring an expert should give you results that pay for themselves!
That being said, if you do decide to do your own SEO please be aware that you will need to put a lot of time into research, writing content, optimizing keywords and more. Do not try to take shortcuts with SEO! Quality time and effort ensures quality SEO results.
Keyword Analysis
The keyword that you choose is important. Quality content alone will not achieve good SEO results. Carefully select your keywords and do not overuse them!
A great keyword analysis tool is the popular (and free) Google’s Keyword Planner.
You can enter proposed keywords into the Google Keyword Planner, and see various data on your chosen keyword. This data includes popularity, trends, historical statistics and traffic forecasts.
When choosing your keywords, do not select the ones with the highest ranking. A keyword such as clothing, for example, will have far too much competition! If you use a keyword that is more suited to your niche such as toddler’s dresses, you will get clicks from people who really need you.
Google Analytics is also another great free tool where you can analyse the data on visitors to your website, once it is up and running.
Related and Proof Terms
There are many tools that will let you see related terms and proof terms for your document. These terms are explained below. Google’s Keyword Planner will allow you to search for related and proof terms. Be sure to include some of these in your document.
Related terms
Related terms are synonyms for a search term, or keyword. For example, related terms for library may include:
- Collection
- Archive
- Books
- Records
- Files
- Documents
Proof terms
Proof terms are terms that the search engines have found will be used when discussing a topic. This helps the search engines to find out if the website is genuine or is trying to trick them into giving good SEO results.
Examples of proof terms for library include:
- Special collections
- Catalogue
- Schools library
- Support
- Staff
- Databases
It is necessary to incorporate both the keyword, relevant and proof terms into your content in order to achieve the best results in your SEO campaign.
Your own knowledge of the subject you are writing about will naturally cover some or both of these terms.
How Often to Use Your keywords
Do not overuse your keywords. It is a good rule of thumb to use your keyword 1-3 times for every 750 words and to also use relevant terms and proof terms throughout the content.
Links
Links are great for SEO. Always use keywords or related words for the term. Be careful not to overuse links.
Content
Use SEO keywords from the start wherever possible. Try to use your main keyword in your URL. It is much easier to set up your website and blog with SEO as soon as it is created.
Content is king to the search engines. Search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo love websites that have quality content, are well search optimised and are continually updated.
Blogs are a great way to continually update your site. Ensure that keywords are used in the articles, correctly, for great SEO results.
If you take note of all of the information above, you can achieve SEO results. SEO is a continuous process. Content must be regularly updated and search engine optimised.
You will not see immediate results but within 3-6 weeks you should see a marked improvement which improves every 2 weeks or so by a few positions. Everyone that has a website or is planning of having a website needs an SEO strategy.
Leave a Reply