Website Optimisation and SEO

As we delve further and further into the world of SEO, we hope our step by step guide is fully quenching your SEO thirst and helping you to understand the real complexities that are involved. It isn't just a one man job, it isn't a one day job and there definitely are no magic fixes. SEO is a long and arduous process that takes years of knowledge and skill to successfully put into practice. Too many people misunderstand and underestimate the power of SEO but hopefully our step by step procedure is helping to prove just what it really takes.

Now, we've given you the intro, the basics and hopefully helped you determine the role SEO can play in your online marketing. We've mentioned setting out your goals and understanding the importance of keywords and determined that content is indeed king; now it's time to focus on the other, just as crucial element of a successful SEO strategy; your website.

Think it through; all this effort to produce high quality copy cleverly filled with keywords is for what purpose? To grab an audience, drawing them to your website and potentially converting them into customers, so ask yourself; is your website up to scratch?

Far too many companies spend their time, effort and resources boosting their search engine rankings completely failing to understand that as important as it is, a search engine isn't what is going to clinch that sale, it isn't going to brag about your products  and services and it certainly isn't going to cause people to scream and shout. Your website is the clinching factor so it is vital to ensure every element of it is up to scratch.

Your content isn't just for the sake of search engines so don't just concentrate on your blog pieces and other external posts; the content on your website needs to be just as good. Using Keywords, your online content will naturally boost your SERP results but if produced right it will also assist in providing interesting information, drawing in your readers and enticing them further to what you are selling. Your content should reflect your business in the best way possible…poorly written content with no relevance and littered with spelling and grammatical errors will do nothing but turn your audience off so get fixing.

The page layout will play a large part in determining just how long your visitors will stay on site. Keep your layout simple, pages clean and use a minimal amount of text which should be broken up to avoid boring and confusing your visitors. Make your website easy to use and you will find people will be less likely to click away.

Have you sorted the right landing pages? this is one of the biggest problems in the world of websites and SEO. Your landing page is the specific page that the search engine will direct users to, so for example if the user has searched for "black curtains", when the site link appears and is clicked on, it should direct the user straight to a page with black curtains, it's as simple as that. Too many businesses neglect perfecting their landing pages when this can be massively crucial…imagine searching for black curtains and being taken to a page that has no black curtains on at all; how long before you get bored and click away?

Did you know that page titles play an important role is SEO? A lot of people don't which is why they find themselves going for the oh so popular 'Homepage' and 'About us' but your title is what quickly summarises your content for users and is reproduced at the top of most browsers so try and opt for more descriptive titles as this counts for a lot more than you think it does.

Imagine sitting in front of your computer screen looking at hoards of text; how long do you think it will be before you get bored, stop reading and completely switch off? Remember that a website isn't a book so use images as much as possible as they not only break up text but help to easily illustrate your message. Ensure that with all images you include a description as it will give search engines just what they need to pick you up.

Your website is what you are trying to push up in those SEO results but whatever methods you use, whether it's PPC advertising, social media marketing or any other; never forget that it is your website that is the ultimate selling point. Ensure your website is fine-tuned and ready to be at its best as it really is the make or break factor between success and failure.