Every heard of SEO? How often do you go beyond page one of the search results when you Google something? Do you ever make it past page three or four?  

An old internet joke suggests the best place to hide a dead body is on page two of Google’s search results. Hubspot’s research seems to back that up. They found that 75% of people never make it beyond the first page, and a good chunk of those never make it beyond the first link!

So how do you get your website to rank higher in Google? You can pay to be there through Google Ads. However, research suggests that 70-80% of people ignore paid links in favour of organic links. 

That’s where SEO comes in. 

SEO stands for search engine optimisation, and it’s the practice of structuring your site to rank higher in organic search engine results.

There are three kinds of SEO – off-page SEO, on-page SEO, and technical SEO (sometimes considered a sub-category of on-page SEO). 

Off-page

As the name suggests, covers all the things that happen outside of your website, like backlinking, social media, citations, content marketing, guest blogging, and so on. All these things prompt people to link back to your site, which suggests to Google that it has something of value and is worth promoting in search results. If you’d like to read more about backlinking and how it can help your SEO, check out our blog on the subject.

Technical SEO

Involves the way your site’s code is set up. Google needs to be able to find, crawl, render, and index your site’s pages before it can recommend them to searchers. Your site also needs to be optimised for mobile, fast-loading, well-structured, and free of things like broken internal links and duplicate content for Google to prioritise it over others. A good web developer can help you ensure that your technical SEO is up to scratch.

On-page

Includes all the content on your website, including your headings, subheadings, page copy, alt text on images, and title tags. Google will crawl your website looking for keywords – words that tell it what your site is all about. Keywords are also the words and phrases that searchers will type into the search pane when they are looking for something online. 

The main goal of on-page SEO is to anticipate which keywords your customers will use, and place them strategically throughout your site. The more closely your content matches your customer’s searches, the better the chance they’ll see your site at the top of their Google search page. Finding keywords is a bit of an art form, and often the tools to help you do it are expensive. However, we have a blog that shows you six ways to find keywords for free.

The best place to use your keywords is in your page headings and subheadings (the H1 and H2 text) and sprinkled appropriately throughout your body copy. Several years ago, people used to pack their copy with keywords to the point where their website would read very awkwardly. However, Google’s algorithm has become much more sophisticated to the point where not only does “keyword stuffing” no longer work, but it can actually harm your search results. Google will always prioritise good quality content over keyword-stuffed thin content, so it’s important to get the balance right.

The good news is that when you get your small business website built by Moreweb, we take care of all the technical and on-page SEO for you, with the goal of attracting as much genuine, organic traffic as possible. If you’d like to find out more, get in touch today!