How to make sure your new website is SEO friendly
There has been many occasions where we have been approached by a company that has recently launched a new website, but are dumbfounded to find that no matter how good it looks it doesn’t seem to be drawing in the number of visitors they would expect.
More often than not we find that this is because although the look and navigation of the site is great, there hasn’t been much time spent on on-site SEO.
Having an effective Organic SEO campaign in place is a critical part of attracting customers and ultimately getting them to specify or buy your products and services. However, it is not as simple as updating the website once and away you go - you have to be patient! Managing SEO is a long-term process and it can sometimes take weeks before you start to see any results.
So, how do you check that your web developer hasn’t just done the basics and how can you make sure your site is set up to be search engine friendly?
Make sure you have a strategy in place and the time to manage it
To make SEO work there are a number of steps you have to take.
First of all you have to check the back of the website to verify what, if any, SEO activity, such as the inclusion of metatags and meta-descriptions, has taken place and review where on Google and other search engines your site currently ranks.
Following this you need to carry out a lot of research into your target market and find out what keywords and search terms they use to find your products and services. Then you have to plan a campaign around your audience, the keywords and your company’s targets, monitor the results and regularly review and update the campaign so that it continues to stay effective.
All of this takes time and so SEO should be included as an integral and regular part of your monthly marketing strategy. As such, it may help to nominate one or two people within your department to take ownership of your company’s SEO activity to ensure that it stays a priority and it is planned in line with the rest of your marketing.
Alternatively, if you don’t have the time or resources in your team to take on the task it would be beneficial to appoint a specialist agency, like Dragonfly PR, to manage the entire process for you.
Find the right keywords
A good way to ensure your website can be easily found online is to use relevant keywords where possible, whilst keeping the messages around that word or phrase clear and concise. The best way of doing this is to ask; if I was looking for my products and services, what phrase would I type into Google, and start from there.
There are also a number of tools online, such as Google Adwords, which can help you determine the most common search terms and how often they are used.
Once you have a list of what keywords you should have on your site it is beneficial to then check where on Google your website sits when these terms are searched for. If your company isn’t on the first or second page, then your site needs to include more of these keywords throughout.
Meta-descriptions are important
One of the first things a potential customer sees when searching Google for a product/service is the metatag and meta-description, the short paragraph about your company which is displayed on Google under your website URL. This is, in essence what many people use to judge whether your company is relevant to what they are looking for. You only have a few words to play with, so getting this right and including the right keywords can be the difference between securing the sale or the person scrolling on and instead finding a competitor.
Add quality content regularly
Search engines like organic, quality content, so updating your website with blogs and case studies at least once a month will improve your ranking. What Google doesn’t like though is content that is too salesy, so make sure the copy is well-written, advisory and authoritative. It also helps to include high-res and good quality photography.
With this in mind, it is worth considering appointing a PR company to manage this for you. Choosing an agency that has the skills to pull together a bespoke, quality SEO campaign that includes optimum keywords, and can write quality content that is relevant to your industry and audience, is important.
Here at Dragonfly PR, our PR and content marketing team has a proven track record in creating consistent high quality content that is authoritative and keyword optimised, helping our clients to generate a better ranking on the search engines and secure sales as a result.
As a dedicated Sheffield-based Public Relations, digital marketing and social media agency, we have extensive experience in working with business to business companies including construction and manufacturing to ensure we can deliver robust, consistent campaigns that meet your business objectives.
For more information, email our team at hello@dragonflypr.co.uk or call 0114 3495345.