Search Engine Optimisation

The goal is to be the first result in search

The reality is, SEO may have clear goals, but it's an evolving game. Why a game? Because there are winners and losers.

The winners are the sites that think of their audience as people, not bots trawling the web looking for keyword density. Designing a site for your target audience is the first goal, making it search engine friendly is the second. SEO then becomes a natural benefit of all the work invested in creating content and a user experience that real people enjoy.

When we talk about SEO, we look at a number of factors with a focus on technical and on-page SEO. We review the basic metadata, the theme and code, keyword density and how the information is organised on a page. And it all starts with a key question "what do you want to be found for?"

Relevant Keywords

The keystone of SEO is keywords; you can't rank for every word in the entire world (and you don't want to) so narrow down the search terms that are most relevant for you and that your audience is using. If you sell cat food, be blunt & say you sell cat food. Don't wax lyrical about feline food (well, unless your audience calls it feline food) because the alliteration sounds better than cat food. 

Start with keyword research

"I want to SEO my site"

We hear this a lot. That's great that you want to invest in being found online and we already know where to start. Keyword research.

What words do you want to be found for? And are these the words your audience is using? 

Yes, we know SEO but you know your industry & audience, so let's combine our knowledge to find the best keywords for you to use.

So what does all this research give us? Relevant and related keywords specific to you. Equipped with our keyword research findings, we then look at how to best integrate them naturally into your site through content edits. Think of it as the ultimate bit of bespoke tailoring for your content because the end result looks and feels amazing. 

On-page SEO audit

An on-page SEO audit looks at what can be improved in the content:

  • What does the metadata say? Title? Description?
  • Is schema data being used? Correctly?
  • Are there internal links so visitors can easily navigate between pages?
  • What's the primary navigation menu like?
  • Are there headings and subheadings on every page?
  • Does the content match user intent? tip: Relevant content matters more than word count
  • Do images have alt tags?
  • What is the site saying to index? Is there a sitemap?

We're just getting started. Once we've considered the content we review the technical side.

Technical SEO audit

Technical SEO is important as it impacts how search engines crawl, understand and index your website. This is arguably where our website development knowledge is a game-changer because we have the know-how to improve the technical side of your website so you don't have to learn code.

Key technical SEO points we help with:

  • Checking code is clean
  • Page speed
  • Structured data/schema
  • Internal links
  • Site security 
  • Mobile responsive

Refine, Improve

This may be a matter of rewriting copy to include more relevant keywords (with an emphasis on long-tail keywords) or creating a better visual hierarchy by adding in relevant headings. It could be going through all the images and giving them relevant alt tags so they can appear in an image search. We can look at crawl issues and caching to improve page speed.

There are a number of improvements that can be made to sites to improve SEO and the truth is, these improvements are ongoing.

Website Optimisation Strategy

SEO is part of a website optimisation strategy. What's the difference? Where SEO focuses on search, website optimisation focuses on people.

  • How to get the right people to your site?
  • What happens once they're there?
  • How can their experience with the site be improved?
    • Is the tone too informal? formal?
    • Does the content interest and engage them?

Need help with your SEO or website optimisation? Let's talk, but P.S. we don't believe in black hat SEO tactics. Chat with us.