5 Easy & Great SEO Tips.

Welcome to the new year, a chance to get ‘back in to it’ or a chance to up your game! I for one had a wonderful summer break over Christmas and New Year and got loads of family beach time. Time to only wash my hair in the sea, let the salt settle into my curly hair, the sun to bleach it light. And for my limbs to go a lovely tan glow. Glorious!

On our return to home, Auckland, the weather took a turn, it’s rainy, windy and almost 10 degrees colder than it was at the beach? Humph… the positive glow has gone almost as quick as my tan has. I’m holding tight to the new year and upping my game.

How does this new year, new me story relate to SEO? And writing great content? Well… when you start a new year, it is a moment in time where we bid farewell to the previous year (and let’s face it 2020 was one heck of a year, we are all pretty happy to see the back of) and welcome the start of something that feels fresh, new and full of promise. But if we hold on to some of the old year, the new year may not deliver what we want. Just like keeping that old website content won’t deliver the goods you may have in mind! (see told you I’d find a link!).

If you have a website, and it’s okay, it’s mostly delivering sales, clicks or appearing middling on the Google Rankings, you have an opportunity to gear up and find yourself in the top rankings, more clicks (and conversions) and beating your competition to the punch. BUT, and this is a BIG BUT, you need to be on top of your SEO and content.

1. Fresh year, fresh content.

   Now is a great time to freshen your website, make some simple changes, load a new blog or as simple as updating a little of your content can indicate to Google that your website is fresh, up to date and in use. Heightening your chances of being ‘found’ by Google and your new content can be crawled and increase your chances of your website being boosted.
   Couple this with ensuring you are using appropriate language, that engages your audience and includes keywords to help with your search-ability and you are on your way to mastering SEO.

2. Background Metadata.

   Let me tell you about one of my clients recently successes. She’s a fantastic wedding photographer with a unique style. She has done alright with bookings and has a lovely website with loads of photos showcasing her work. However, she, rightly, identified that she was lagging behind in search results, appearing often on the 9th page of Google search for her top identified keyword… not going to provide the clicks she needed to convert couples to book a shoot! Working with me we identified the issues with her website, which, among other things, were masses of content (used and unused), loads of images, and no meta data content in the background.
   Working together on her Squarespace website we:

   • added SEO metatdata content in the background of each and every page, wedding gallery and blog. Including adding an excerpt and Google description,

   • simplified URL’s across all of the blogs, shortening these where necessary,

   • deleted ALL excess content that wasn’t live or needed,

   • checked and updated all alt text for the images.

   This was a BIG job and some of this is still continuing. But where we stand now is in the top 10 organic search Google sites for that same keyword search!! SEO takes time, but now that we have a great base to start from it is easier to build on this going forward each and every time new content is loaded.

3. Broken Links.

   Whilst checking out your website it is also worth double checking your links. Check the URL descriptors (these are often automatically added by your website provider), they can be hugely long, or have no benefit if they don’t ‘make sense’.
   It’s good practice just to double check back links, or external links as if any pages, blogs or other content, have been moved, deleted or changed these links can break. This is awkward for your human users, sending them to an error page, and a mark against your website for Google!

4. Alt Text.

   When loading images, logos, videos, any media to your website, there needs to be alt text in behind. This is the file name, and on many web platforms you can include an image descriptor. It can be worth the extra time to include this. Google can’t ‘read’ images, only the text in behind. And also means that if the image doesn’t load, or for sight impaired uses, there is appropriate back up wording.

5. Chunky Images.

   While you’re there, when loading media to your website, make sure that they aren’t too ‘chunky’ (file size is too large). Whilst you might be running on super fast fibre and have no trouble loading that video or those images… you’re not creating this website for you alone! There will be customers out there running on less than ideal bandwidth…. AND if that chunky image slows your website, they won’t stick around to find out more, they will click back and find a site that loads quick smart!

So, a new year, a new you and a new website! It doesn’t need to be a complete over-haul of your website. Making the time now to check, double check, update and add to your website and improve your SEO on the way can be a great start to a great year!

And of course, if you need any help, I’m here! If you want to see how all of this comes together, have a read of one of my client’s SEO success.

Jess x