It’s always challenging to understand how to get the most out of your website. If you’re not sure where to begin, however, that’s where it gets even more difficult. As a business owner, we’d wager you’ve heard the phrase Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) thrown about here and there. But do you really understand what it means, and more importantly, why it’s become such as necessity within recent years? At VerriBerri – a specialist SEO company in Chelmsford – these are questions that we’re asked almost every week! But what are the answers? To help shed some light, our team have put together this guide on how you can best utilise this technique.
What is SEO?
With SEO, it’s best to begin with the basics. SEO is the process of streamlining your website in-line with the requirements of the Google Algorithm. The objective of this is to increase its visibility by propelling it further up the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Don’t worry, we’ll explore the different ways how you can do this later. Essentially, however, the higher you rank, the greater your visibility, and the more organic traffic your website receives.
How Does the Google Algorithm Work?
If there’s one component of SEO that requires the help of a SEO company in Chelmsford, it’s understanding the Google Algorithm. Essentially, Google created this set of criteria so they could provide users with the best service possible. Without it, we’d be endlessly looking through page after page of irrelevant information to find the answers we want. If you want your business to be seen online, it’s crucial you stay on the right side of the algorithm. But how do you do this?
When ranking a website, Google follows a three-step process. Initially, Google will send out crawlers to scour all the information contained within the pages on your website. These bots will analyse your content to determine whether it is useful enough to be shown on the SERP. They will also decide how well it conforms with the algorithm.
Once a page has been ‘crawled,’ the second step – indexing – can begin. Essentially, Google, along with other search engines, will add your web page to their database. When a user searches something, Google will scour its index to fetch relevant information. If your web page is within the Google index, it has the potential to be shown. What position it is shown on the SERP, however, depends on how highly you rank against the algorithm. There are over 200 factors that can influence your ranking, and the more you check off, the higher your position. Simple, right? Trust us, we wish that was the case!
For a start, the Google algorithm is everchanging. In fact, it’s thought to be updated as much as 12 times every day. Moreover, Google doesn’t share the algorithm criteria that it wants you to rank against. It’s up to you to discern what works best and what doesn’t, and this certainly can’t be done overnight.
How can a SEO Company in Chelmsford Improve Your SEO Ranking
SEO is one area of marketing that, unless you have extensive prior experience, is best left to the professionals. After all, your site health is fragile. All it takes is one mistake and your website is stuck down the bottom of the SERP. At VerriBerri, some of the ways we can help you with this include:
Keyword Identification
The content you put together for your website is one of the biggest contributors to your position on the SERP. The first step to any blog post will always be the identification of keywords. A keyword is a word or phrase that someone searches for on Google. Keywords help you to understand what users are searching for, and what content you need to produce to reach them. In this blog, for example, the keyword we’ve used is ‘SEO company in Chelmsford.’
When including these phrases within your content, however, one thing you must avoid is keyword stuffing. This is where the keyword is used too often. Understandably, if you were new to SEO, you might assume that this would improve the likelihood of you ranking highly. Unfortunately, however, this isn’t the case, and Google will actually punish websites attempting to cheat the algorithm in this way.
Content Optimisation
Aside from keywords, there are several different rules you must be following to ensure your content is SEO optimised. For a start, anything you produce must display expertise, authority and trustworthiness (EAT). This is one of the guidelines that Google uses to determine whether the content is valuable or not to readers. Google promotes content that adopts these characteristics, and if yours does, you’ll rank higher on the SERP because of it.
Many of the factors Google takes into consideration may seem irrelevant, but they can make all the difference. Sentence length is one of these. According to the algorithm, your sentences shouldn’t be over 20 words long. In their opinion, anything over this length is deemed ‘tricky’ for users to read. Content should also contain headings, subheadings, and images to break up large chunks of text.
What about Local SEO?
When people search something on Google, as many as 46% will be looking for a local business. Therefore, when identifying your list of keywords, it’s so important you also target those that include areas local to you. It’s what people are searching for, especially for those looking for a service or experience. In fact, the phrase “near me” has increased in search frequency by over 500% within recent years. If this is something you ignore, you’re severely limiting the visibility of your business to your target audience.
Contact Us
SEO is one element of your marketing where the assistance of a specialist SEO company in Chelmsford can prove particularly fruitful. For more information about how our SEO services can benefit your business, get in touch! Call us today on 01376 386 850, or simply click here to reach the team.