Many businesses don’t have the capacity to employ the expertise of an SEO agency to oversee their strategy and SEO activities. However, by becoming familiar with the common search engine optimisation processes the following tactics can be implemented in-house.
Conduct keyword research
Keyword research is an essential element of search engine optimisation and is commonly one of the first steps to take when undertaking an SEO campaign. Initially, it is good practice for a company to think about the search terms they expect that people would be using in order to find their company. From this a list can be formed and the traffic volumes of the search terms can be found using Google’s keyword research tools. The chosen keywords will then be the heart of any future SEO activity and can be used as part of article marketing activities and as a basis for on-site optimisation and copy creation.
Ensure your website is SEO friendly
One of the key elements of SEO is making sure that the website is optimised for and readable by search engine spiders. A fundamental aspect of this will be ensuring that there are sufficient keywords placed in the titles, copy and meta-descriptions of the website to help Google read the page and rank it for relevance to the searched term. It is worth considering however that keyword stuffing can have negative consequences as Google can consider these websites to be spam.
Create backlinks
Link building is the process of obtaining links from a wide range of external websites. Google then follows these links and takes them into consideration when ranking the page because they effectively act as endorsements from around the web. Link building can be done through activities such as article marketing and having listings on relevant article directories and partners’ sites. Remember though, Google’s newer algorithm updates have tried to filter out spammy behaviour and therefore, quality is very much equal to quantity.
Keep up to date with SEO news
Google has a habit of changing its algorithms unexpectedly and often without warning. This means that, in the wake of these changes, a page’s position in the results pages can change dramatically depending on how the algorithm has been tweaked. Therefore, it is always best to keep up to date with any changes that can have an effect on page ranking, so that a company can adjust its approach to SEO to stay ahead of the game and ensure that their page continues to rank.
