Optimising Your Website For Search Engines
pimping your webpages for the benefit of search engines such as Google and Bing
Got a super sexy webpage taht’s not getting the traffic it deserves? Poor webpage
Sometimes it just needs a helping hand to make it that bit more appealing to a search engine, and we’re here to help you pimp your page.
Known as on-page optimisation, there are changes you can make to your websites individual pages that can help search engines understand what it is you’re trying to say. It’s like texting each other with no context and hoping the other one gets it. (Spoiler alert, no one ever gets it!)
The things we’re going to quickly cover in this blog are; meta tags and title, headings and the page copy. Let’s break them down so you can help each webpage smooth talk a search engine.
Meta tags and title
These two things, you’ll never see on the page unless you were looking at the code (don’t, it’s scary!). Essentially, they’re embedded messages that’ll help the search engine determine what is on the webpage.
The title and the meta description are the bits you see on a search engine results page, quite literally the title of the page and the little description that lets you know what sort of thing you’re going to find on the page.
If you were selling digital marketing training, you’d want to make sure the phrase ‘digital marketing training’ is in both the title and description, placing it within the copy to make it fit and describe what the page is about.
The title should be short, sweet and to the point. Use the description to explain what the page is about. The description should be able two short sentences/150 characters and reinforce the title by using the keyword/phrase again – in this instance, ‘digital marketing training’.
Considering these are the things that appear in the search engine results pages, you need to consider both Googles algorithm AND the way a searcher will see/read/digest the result. Don’t just keyword stuff in the title, remember it’s got to draw in a potential customer.
Headings and copy
Let’s start by remembering that primarily, you’re writing for people. Keyword/phrase stuffing into the copy of your webpage in an attempt to make search engines understand what it’s about won’t work! They’ll find you a bit clingy, not so cool anymore, and mark you as spam. Website traffic will see it as an instant turn-off, not really wanting to investigate further due to your obsessive use of the word/phrase.
A great rule of thumb would be to stick between two to five mentions of your keyword, dependant on the length of the copy of course. Length of your copy is subjective and varies depending on the business, product, and intention – but no one likes a mass of text!
To maximise the value and relevancy of your individual webpage, you should include your keywords/phrases in <H1> heading tags. Using title tags is a great way to provide a page hierarchy for search engines and also a great way to break up the copy of your page, provide structure and make it easier to digest for website visitors. It’s kinda like the bigger it is, the more Google wants to look at it…
There’s no limit on the amount of <H1> headings you can have on your page, Google said so. That sounds super appealing from an SEO point of view, yeah. But it won’t look nice to the user, will it? And remember, they’re your primary audience!
Introducing elements into your webpage to make it all that more appealing to search engines will involve you using a little bit of creativity. That caring touch that everyone can enjoy, mixed with the important bits that Google desires of your webpage.
It’s easy peasy to pimp your page and make search engines like them. Let us know how you get on but if you have any other questions, pop us a message on Twitter or Facebook.
Want to learn more? Check out our WTF?! series.
Amber Vellacott
Content Marketing Lead
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