Search Engine Optimisation has become a critical part of business in the modern world. Even the best website is useless if nobody can find it, and that’s where SEO comes into play.
The more optimised a website is for visibility on search engines, the more likely people will find it when searching for the things your business offers.
So, how does search engine optimisation encourage business growth? And why should your business care?
How SEO Drives Business Growth in Gauteng
For your business to grow, it needs customers, partners and stakeholders. There are people out there, right now, who are looking for the things your business offers, and if your competitors have better optimised sites, they are being found before you are. This gives your competition a little more market share, market share that can be working towards growing your capital, your business.
If nobody is finding your website, it is going stagnant. But there is a lot more to it than that. What kind of experience do your visitors get when they land on your website? If it is poorly optimised, loads slowly, doesn’t communicate your offers clearly, or is difficult to navigate, your reputation is taking a hit, not just your website’s ranking.
What about the cost behind your Google Ads, have you noticed that they might be a bit high per click? The issue could be a poorly optimised website or landing page. If Google doesn’t rank your site very highly, it often translates into a lower ad score, which means a higher bid for your clicks.
With all this in mind, what can you do to improve your site’s optimisation?
Step-by-Step Guide to Implementing Search Engine Optimisation
Research Your Keywords
Not all search terms are created equal, you need to find the best ones for your niche and website. Using platforms like Google Ads, you can look for which search terms which are most likely to get your site more traffic.
When doing keyword research, you want to focus on selecting keyword suggestions that give you a good ratio of high monthly search volumes and low competition where possible. Each page on your website should also have a unique keyword associated with it, and consider long tail keywords that make searches more specific.
All that Meta-Stuff
Now, with your keywords in hand, you can optimise the metadata on your website’s pages. Write captivating meta descriptions and title tags for each page. Are there images on the page (there should be), make sure you give them alt-tags and descriptions too, this helps them be more visible in search engines.
Also, take care to use your keywords naturally and cleverly in your metadata.
The Quality of Your Content
They say content is king, and they are correct. Google scours your content carefully when ranking your website, so you need to make sure that each page has enough of it.
It needs to be relevant to your page, should contain an even spacing of your keywords, should be easy enough to read (so no academic language or industry jargon, and should be structured with headings and subheadings.
Building those Backlinks
Backlinks are links that other websites have made to yours. Let’s say you have an interesting and informative blog (hopefully like this one), and somebody wants to share it on their website, so they provide a link on their page to your blog.
That is a backlink. A vote of confidence from someone else on the web, and when these come from websites with authority, it greatly enhances your credibility and rankings.
Getting backlinks isn’t straightforward. Sometimes you need to pick up the phone and call someone with a website that is relevant to yours, and ask for it.
However, by creating engaging and informative content, you raise the chance of earning backlinks organically.
Monitoring Performance and Adjusting SEO
Optimisation is not a set it and forget it scenario, it takes constant work, continual adjustments, and never ending monitoring. Your competitors are always doing it, which means they might rank better than you, requiring work on your side. Google changes the way their algorithm behaves from time to time, and optimisation needs to happen again.
Because of this, you need to continually work on optimisation to improve rankings and sustain them.
Get an Search Engine Optimisation Analysis
Interested in outranking your competitors with professional help?
Be sure to get in touch with ATKASA – Digital Agency today to find out more about our search engine optimisation services.