How To Teach Yourself Basic SEO To Get Your Website Discovered

A website without any traffic is just a series of files on the web. A website traffic to feed it. Targeted traffic creates the oppurtunity for business. A website that hasn't been optimised to genereate traffic is a bit like getting a toy with no batteries.

Your website will and rightly so should be, one of your most expensive business investments.  Only if it has those batteries though.

By educating yourself on the basics of search engine optimisation known as SEO.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. Everybody uses search engines to find things, mostly Google and sometimes Bing. This sort of traffic that arrives on your website is what is known as organic traffic or non-paid traffic.  I really rate Search Engine Land as a great place to start to learn more about SEO. There’s something there for all levels of understanding. 

But you're here to find out how I can help teach you, right? After doing what I do for so long I always rinse and repeat these basic steps so I feel I am able to show you some SEO basics for yourself.

It’s important to have an understanding of what keywords the content on your website needs to include. You’ll already have a good grasp of this because you know your business inside out. Sometimes online people are searching using words you might not have realised or thought of. There is a tool from Google called the Keyword Planner that is one of the oldest and still the best there is. It’s free to use but involves a bit of a search to get to the free usage part. This article ‘How To Use Google Keyword Planner’ explains how to get access far more concisely than I ever could. It's a bit of an 'in the know' hack.

You need to undertstand how to use them for On Page SEO 

This next exercise is an important one for the search engines to be able to discover your website. In order to understand this, you need access to the page titles and descriptions area of your website’s content management system. If your web developer hasn’t given you this access, go and get it right now. This is the bit you can take control of and put that keyword research to good use. We’ll talk about your website’s home page first. This is where your keyword research gets put to use.

•    Page Title - Use the primary keyword for the page at least once in the title and preferably as close to the start as possible. Here’s an example.

Never use the word ‘HOME’. Imagine what Google thinks ‘home’ means in relation to your business. It’s the default setting web developers leave in the page title who aren’t SEO focused. Use keywords that you want your business to be known for. Then rinse and repeat for every important page. Do not duplicate for quickness. Each page has to be unique. If it’s not unique then there is no need to have it. Less is more. 

•    Page Description – this part needs to use the keyword again but the clever bit here is to ‘sell’ the page. When the user sees it out on Google does it make them want to click? The primary goal of a meta description is to earn the user’s click. 

You can change titles and descriptions as much as you want. They aren’t written in stone. They need to be tested and tested. I’d recommend that you make an annotation in your Google Analytics when you make any page changes so you can check the traffic increase/decrease. I always keep a spread sheet too of all the changes I’ve made on a website.

Bear in mind that Google may opt to choose not to show your page descriptions. This can often happen if they are too short or long. Optimal length is 154 characters and recommended not to be under 130. I’ve also seen Google ignore page titles but that is quite rare.

Pictures tell and sell and are an important feature of any website. They are heavy pieces of content though and can seriously slow down the speed of a website. Loading speed is a Google ranking factor. Optimising images is one of the SEO skills that many people don’t know or forget about. Resizing the original files and compressing your images can make a massive difference in the page loading time. Research has shown that if your pages take longer than three seconds to load then the visitor will bounce off. Your competition is just a click away.

Well optimised images and logos also have a chance of getting discovered in Google’s image carousels. All extra ways to drive traffic to your website.

Ask yourself this? Take a long hard look with fresh eyes or better still ask someone to critique for you. Does the content on your website give the visitor enough of the correct information about how you can help them? Think about those keywords you researched at the very beginning of this exercise. Your content needs to be keyword rich with a positive blend of words, images and actions you would like the user to take. 

Are your pages just a paragraph in length or even worse still empty {this happens a lot}? Empty pages with just a sentence or two and one image.  If you think about it logically, why would Google serve your website in place of someone else's  who has spent time optimising their website? It’s common sense really isn’t it when you think about it?

I want this article to rank eventually for someone searching for how to teach themselves the basics of SEO. I carried out keyword research, then thought of a catchy title  that might answer a question users would search for the answer to, crafted a meta title and description with a selection of re-sized and named images. I’ve broken the content up into headings, subheadings and bullet points so it’s easy to digest. So far, the word count is 1089 words and I’m going to add a call to action at the end.

Do you think I stand a chance of Google ranking this article eventually and that we will receive traffic over time from it?

Now adopt that approach for your own content.

The thing about SEO is that it’s not just one size fits all. It’s part of a much bigger picture. After following my tips by now you should be excited to share all of that hard work you’ve put into practice from your newly found DIY SEO skills. 

One of the easiest ways to share your website and its content is through some well cared for social media channels. But it doesn’t stop there.

Importantly, you want other people to share your content directly from your website. That’s where the magic lies. Other people sharing your content because they found it so useful and informative that they wanted to share it with their network.

•    Make sure your social media icons are clearly visible throughout your website. We personally prefer the header and footer menus so they are always visible.
•    Make sure you have your social media icons at the end of blog posts so the reader can share.
•    Have your social media channels embedded into the checkout of your ecommerce website so that visitors can share their purchase with their friends.
•    Add options to print and email content, too. 

This final tip isn’t something you can do yourself but it’s something I would recommend you do as soon as possible if is still outstanding on improving your website.

“Mobile accounts for approximately half of web traffic worldwide. In the fourth quarter of 2019, mobile devices (excluding tablets) generated 52.6 percent of global website traffic, consistently hovering around the 50 percent mark since the beginning of 2017.” Credit Statista.com

This data is probably already massively outdated and will be higher especially as more people have been online than ever due to the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Content on mobile devices needs to be punchy and straight to the point. In our web designs we strip out much of the unnecessary content that mobile visitors aren't interested in seeing. Access to important things on your website needs to be quick and easy. Clickable phone numbers and email addresses, easy to read content and streamlined images, fast page response times all make for a seamless mobile experience. In what is rapidly becoming a time poor society, mobile visitors want to access your website as quickly as possible. 

This all takes time and isn’t an overnight fix to get on page one of Google for all of your keyword terms, but consistency and persistence combined with quality will pay off. I’ve grown organic traffic for many. many websites using this same technique over the years and it always works. The basics have never changed.

If teaching yourself DIY SEO skills aren’t for you then do get in touch for a chat about how we can improve your website’s chances of organic discovery on Google.