SEO (or Search Engine Optimisation) of all digital marketing terms is something many business owners fret about the most. How can I get on page one of Google. 

The answer can be simplier than you realise - are you answering your customers questions?

SEO or more correctly Search Engine Optimisation is the process of making sure that your website will rank well for certain key search phrases that your customers and potential customers actually use when they search. It is how we get noticed, when all around us are also saying pick me, pick me!

Rather than thinking so much about the pick me, notice me scenario, if we flip this thinking and start from the premise of how well are we really answering our customers questions, we start to see SEO as something that we can do better and control. 

A little while ago, I was asking for a recipe for an Orange Gin Cake (yes I know, it does sound amazing!) and the answer back from the team was Google It!

We use Google each and everyday to find the answers to our questions. So in order to rank well inside Google, you need to make sure that your website is optimised to answer your clients questions. A page will rank well (ie appear high in search results) if it specifically answers my one question.

Sometimes when I chat to small business owners, I come across some older thinking about how Google search works. In the olden days, please would put as many keywords into their website page code that might be related to their entire business. So rather than thinking about a simple questions I click might ask and therefore how you might structure a page to answer that question, everything gets thrown at the page to drive a result.

Google looks if you like at both how our page looks and works, but more importantly it looks at key cues that tell it how how relevant our particular website page is for answering the question of our potential customer.

That is the key for all SEO related work at your website - RELEVANCE.

How relevant is your website or more correctly the page at your website to answering your clients question?

In a nutshell, with all of Google’s complex algorithms in place, that is all they are attempting to do. List all pages of all websites in order of how relevant they are to the particular search question.

So when you start to think about relevance and more specifically how relevant your page is in answering your clients search question, what we need to understand about SEO changes quite a bit.

So here are my 5 top tips to focus on enhancing how relevant your various website pages or landing pages are to ensure that they are ranked well by Google when your clients come searching and asking their questions.
 

SEO Simplified Tip 1 - Separate landing pages

Treat each page of your site as a unique landing page - each page should only be about 1 thing. If you find yourself speaking in detail about more than 1 thing, then you need another page

SEO Simplified Tip 2 - Have a unique Page Title

Ensure that each page has a unique Page Title that focuses solely on what the page is about. If your page contains a recipe for a Gin and Orange Cake, then make sure your page title says Gin and Orange Cake Recipe or something similar

SEO Simplified Tip 3 - Enticing page description

Ensure you specify an enticing page description that outlines in more detail what the page is about. This section will be what shows up in the list of sites that match your search criteria. Think of this as a great “call to action” opportunity that will entice people to click,I have included an example below.    

SEO Simplified Tip 4 - On Page SEO                      

Refer, describe and reference your searchable thing on your page multiple times - this is called ON Page SEO. Sometimes it can be tricky to balance referencing your offer multiple times in page content, without it coming across as rubbish. If it passes the “read out loud test” then you are on the right path. So think of a Page Name that references your topic, then include a series of subheadings that also reference the topic in similar ways. Make sure that you also scatter key words in the body content as well. What you are trying to do here is reinforce the message, via boosting what is known as keyword density, without sounding like an idiot.

SEO Simplified Tip 5 - Research what your target client actually is looking for

Make sure you focus your attention on what kinds of questions your clients actually ask. There is no point focussing your energy on content, page titles and descriptions for items that are not actually anything that people ask about, search on or refer to. This can be tricky if you are not actually across your target audience, how they speak or how your products & services  solve your clients problems/answer their questions.

General Technical SEO Tips

There are other tools you can use once you have your copy in place, things like;

Heading styles H1 for page names, H2 , H3 etc for sub headings

Using Bold tags or Italics to highlight certain key phrases that reference your topic

Naming your images correctly - ie Yummy-gin-and-orange-cake.jpg

You don’t need to be a mathematician to rank well via Google’s algorithm, but understanding and acting on the above 5 key steps will go a long way to ensuring that your website pages rank well when answering your clients questions.

Got a question? Happy to provide some quick answers in the comments below.