Search engine optimisation
SEO, short for Search Engine Optimisation, is the art of making your website appear higher in results for search engines. With a quality SEO strategy, your brand is seen, heard, and interacted with. Ignore it, and you risk fading into digital obscurity.
Combining SEO with digital advertising, email marketing, and social media creates a harmonious digital marketing strategy for reaching your goals, whether that means visitors picking up the phone or completing a contact form, making a booking or purchasing an item.
There are three aspects to good SEO work: technical, on-page and off-page.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the nuts and bolts: site speed, mobile optimisation, site architecture, security and structured data. Many of these appear "under the hood" and are not immediately apparent to human visitors, but they are the metrics by which search engines will judge and rank your website.
One of the tools we use for technical SEO information is Google's PageSpeed Insights. It gives a wealth of information from Google's perspective about how we can make your website the best it can be. Another useful tool is Checkbot which reports on many different technical aspects of your website.
As mobile devices dominate internet traffic, tailoring your site to be mobile-friendly is paramount. Mobile SEO means optimising site design, site structure, page speed and more to ensure a slick user experience for the smartphone crowd. You will notice an easier, more enjoyable experience using a mobile-optimised website but implementing this aspect of SEO work is definitely one for technical experts.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO means tweaking each web page's text, images and other content to be as useful and accessible as possible. We can help with keyword research, which helps you know what your target audience is searching for.
These days it's absolutely not about stuffing as many keywords as possible onto a page in white text on a white background (the internet has improved in some ways since the early days). Instead, on-page SEO requires engaging, user-friendly content, sprinkled with aptly used keywords. It's the art of infusing creativity into SEO recommendations.
Accessibility is key to getting good SEO results. Tools like WAVE will help you understand where your website's accessibility could be improved, such as where your text and background colours don't have enough contrast for partially-sighted users, where the structure of your text could be improved, or where you're lacking descriptions of images for people using screen readers.
On-page SEO isn't the kind of thing you do once and then forget about. Done well it forms part of a regular routine of reviewing and updating in order to create great content.
Off-page SEO
Just as personal recommendations amplify the popularity of a restaurant, off-page SEO bolsters your site's reputation.
However, just adding any old links won't do. At Iteracy we're inundated with messages from people offering "back links" and "link building" services. As you'd expect, these links will be to spammy, dubious sites and you should avoid such offers like the plague.
It's about relevant, high-quality links into your website from other sites and social media, and many more tactics. Google sees a link to your website from another reputable site as a vote for yours, and so good off-page SEO casts a wide net of credibility around your website.
When done right, social media can be your brand’s most charming ambassador, working hand in hand with SEO. A powerful social presence can act as a signal to search engines about your site’s quality and relevance, amplifying your SEO efforts.
If the thought of creating regular social media posts makes you groan, then you need to consider outsourcing it - you can't ignore the need for social media if you want to up your SEO game.
Tracking your SEO
If you've put effort into SEO you will want to track the impact in order to establish what's working and what isn't and determine the most effective use of your time and money. Analytics and reporting tools help you modify and refine your SEO strategies, ensuring a consistently improving performance. We mainly use funnels and goals in Google Analytics to track the success of our SEO work.
SEO Reports
If you've got an existing website and you're not sure where to start, commission a detailed SEO report from Iteracy. We'll analyse and test your website from every angle to look at technical details, on-page SEO and off-page SEO, and summarise the results in a comprehensive ~20 page PDF. Each aspect of your site will receive a score along with clear recommendations for improving your SEO.
By implementing effective SEO strategies, you will prime your website for success, enhancing visibility, boosting user experience, and ultimately driving valuable traffic.
Get in touch today to talk to us about improving your SEO.