Use SEO to Improve Google Search Results

It’s unlikely that I need to convince anyone nowadays that SEO and search rankings matter. And just for the ‘newbies’ learning about this topic, search engine optimisation (SEO) is the tool used to improve your website’s organic search results.

There are many factors that influence your search rankings. Some you have easy control over, e.g. your website content, and some you have less control over e.g. the age of your domain name.

So for the purpose of this article, let’s talk about what you can control – your website content. And this includes your ‘on page’ content (what you see when you land on a web page) and your ‘off page’ content, these are referred to as your meta tags, with the two key ones being your Title and Description meta tags.

Key points to keep in mind with SEO and your on page content

With regard to the products or services you sell, it’s important to do keyword research to identify the most popular search phrases that customers would use in Google, when doing online research for your product or service.
Once you have identified the best keyword phrases to use for your products or services, this research will influence how to handle your website navigation.
Ideally split your website content across pages that incorporate your key topics and search phrases. Ideally, develop single topic pages focusing on the key SEO search phrases.
For each web page, incorporate the keyword phrase in the heading text and also use in the page body text. This is key for strong SEO performance. There are a few tricks that can go with this, to enhance the strength of optimising for keyword phrases. But the key thing is understanding that the use of text and keyword phrases are highly linked for SEO purposes.
When including the keyword phrases into your general page text, it’s important to not over populate these phrases, as Google may see this as ‘keyword stuffing’, which is strongly disliked by Google.
The key thing to keep top of mind, is even with the task of blending in keyword phrases, the final version of the copy still needs to be read well, have good content, and be of interest to your reader.
Good SEO has the challenge of developing interesting and useful content which also incorporates SEO tactics and principles. For most businesses, the primary purpose of your website is to achieve sales, either directly from the website (if it is a shopping cart/e-commerce website), or as a lead generation tool i.e. to entice the customer to contact your business.

For Good SEO what Pages Should Your Website Include

Some of this will seem obvious:

Home page
About Us or Our Team
Our Services, plus separate dedicated pages on key topics and services
Testimonials – social proof is good to include to validate your business
Gallery – show or display your products with a good visual gallery
Contact Us and/or Our Location/s
In the very top banner area your contact phone number so people on a smartphone can quickly and easily call you.

These are just some of the key factors that your should keep in mind when implementing SEO practices for your website.