Keywords are essential for website optimisation and key to your onsite SEO strategy as well as Pay Per Click campaigns. But so often they seem to be veiled in mystery. In this blog we want to dispel any myths and give you a summary about what keywords are, why you should think about them and how they can help your website be seen in search engine results pages (SERPs).
When we refer to onsite SEO we mean Search Engine Optimisation. This is all about getting your website seen in the search engine results when someone searches for a product or service. It is about getting your business in the mix. While there’s a lot to think about with a complete holistic SEO strategy, here we’ll focus on keywords as this is something that you can work on yourself and you’ll soon find that your website benefits.
Quick website audit
Before you start thinking of key phrases conduct a quick review of your website to see where some gaps can be filled quickly. This will also help SEO campaigns. This will also act as a reminder of anything that is missing and needs changing.
So, firstly, we recommend you review all your website content to ensure that:
- Your website is up to date for example, contact details, your team, images etc.
- There are no broken links and you start link building. Add internal links to other pages on your website where you can. This all helps with ease of navigation and keeping people on your website as long as possible
- Then consider adding a blog or news feed if you don’t already
Get in touch with us for a free website review.
The reason for a blog is that once you have done your review of your website, even though you might be updating content with keywords on your services pages, about us or homepage, these webpages generally remain static. The reason for creating your list of keywords is that you add them to regular ongoing content that enables you to add fresh content to your website with relevant information for your target audience. Search engines are looking for regular, relevant content.
If you already have a blog, then check back to see when you last added any content and how often you do this. The frequency of adding content is just as important as those keywords. The more you use the keywords in fresh content, the more chance you have of being found by search engines and this will help you improve your organic search ranking.
Keywords – be specific
With keywords it’s all about being specific to your business. Think about what your target audience would type in the search engine function to find what they are looking for. This is a great place to start to help you create a list of the keywords for your audience.
Let’s take an accountancy practice as an example. If you are an accountancy firm based in Croydon then make sure that you regularly say this on your website. But also think of variations of the phrase and what else people may search for in relation to your accounting services for example, tax advice, self-assessment, payroll, corporate tax.
Then start to delve a little deeper. Business owners want to work with companies that offer knowledge and expertise, so you can’t just add words to a webpage without any substance. Search engines don’t look favourably when you ‘stuff keywords’ on a page so you need to make sure you have high quality content on your website and that inclusion of a good range of keywords enhances what you have written. Not only should the keywords be relevant to your business it is vital that content is relevant to the blog in question. If people click on your link in search it needs to ‘do what it says on the tin’ to avoid visitors leaving too soon.
So, if you’re an accountancy firm wanting to promote your payroll services in a blog you need to be giving tips and advice to your prospects and include further keywords to help search engines, and that will interest prospects further, for example:
- online payroll
- payroll system
- real time information
- chartered accountants
- data security
- HR solutions
- pensions auto enrolment
Keywords with a few phrases are sometimes referred to as long-tail keywords. They may not produce the volume of searches but they are usually more relevant. Quality over quantity is good to remember.
Whatever your business, keep an eye on your competition. As part of your keyword research see what they are writing about and telling their customers. If you look at their meta descriptions, that paragraph that you can see when a company appears in a google search, this will give a good indication of keywords.
Header tags, meta descriptions
Here’s a few more quick actions you can implement that will help organic rankings.
When you write blogs you should also consider adding keywords in the headings and subheadings or H1 or H2 tags (you can ask your web developer about these H1/H2 tags, in a WordPress site it is usually easy to see how to change these but sometimes a nudge in the right direction can help).
Remember to complete your meta description with relevant keywords with what’s on that particular page of your website.
Digital Marketing agency Croydon
We can work with you on your digital marketing strategy including a mix of tactics such as SEO services, social media management, Pay Per Click (PPC), email marketing and CRM – read more about our marketing services.