Wondering why your business website isn’t ranking for keywords or phrases? Of course, it is a priority for your website to show up in search results for the products and services you offer but the million-pound question business owners around the UK are all wondering, is how can I make that happen? Here we give you some simple to-action tips to help you rank for specific search terms.
Where to start:
This may seem obvious but you need to think like your ideal customer. What will they search in Google for, what questions are they asking search engines, and what problems are they facing that they need solving?
Sometimes it can be harder to do this than you might think! As you are so close to your business you can struggle to be subjective. A great idea is to actually speak to your customers. Ask them what they search for, and what problems they have that prompted them to search for you.
You can also just start typing into the Google search bar and you will see suggested search phrases appear; these are genuine phrases that are regularly used by people just like your target audience!
Ok, so you have some search terms, now what…
Your website pages ideally need to be dedicated to a topic or search phrase that you want to rank for. If you are based in a specific area or town it may be a good idea to include that on your page. Here is an example. Red Box Web Design have a key phrase that our clients might search for: Website designers Stafford. To help us rank for this page we would create a specific page on our website with that as the title. We would then talk about the subject, including relevant keywords and phrases but only where they fit naturally into the text.
Keyword stuffing (or inserting your chosen keyphrase as many times as possible into your text) is a thing of the past so avoid this if you do want your page to rank. Instead, your content should flow as if you are in a conversation with your ideal customer, Google and your customer will thank you for it.
Include relevant images that you have the right to use. Avoid stock images where possible as these may not help your search engine ranking as they are used across the web. Ensure you add Alt tags to your images too, these help people using screen readers etc to be given a description of your image, amongst various other benefits.
If your page content may be relevant to another business locally, you could ask for a link back from their site to yours. For example, If you run a dog boarding kennel you may approach local vets and ask if you could write a small article for their blog relating to the care pets receive in kennels (generic information is usually best with this as it is not an advertisement) however you should be able to have your name and contact details with a link to your site also added to the post. This is called a backlink. Relevant backlinks from trusted websites can in time have a positive impact on your rankings.
Need a helping hand with your SEO (Search Engine Ranking)
If you are feeling frustrated with your search engine results rankings, don’t know where to start or simply just don’t have the time and energy to try and conquer the SEO mountain alone, we can help. Red Box Web offer 1-2-1 SEO coaching if you want some supported learning, or we can take SEO off your plate and manage it for you, making sure you have regular reports to show you the progress we are making, you can read more here.
Want to know more? Let’s talk