At its core, the purpose of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is to make your website easy to find on Google and to increase the quantity of relevant traffic coming to your site. Search engines crawl your website, assess it against a set of criteria (often referred to as “The Algorithm”), then index your website and give it a ranking. This ranking determines where your website appears in the search engine results for particular keywords compared to other websites.
SEO involves optimising or tweaking your website and digital presence so that you score higher in the assessment stage, thereby receiving a higher ranking. In this article, we’re going to share some SEO basics to help you understand how SEO can help you drive more traffic to your website.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is crucial to ensure that you are optimising your website for terms that are not only relevant to your product or service, but that people are actually searching for. If you skip this step and optimise for what you think is important, or what you personally would type into Google, you risk missing many opportunities.
For instance, local SEO Brisbane strategies often focus on keywords that are location-specific, like SEO service Brisbane or SEO consultant Brisbane. What’s the point of ranking at the top of Google for a search term that no one ever types into Google?
What’s the point of ranking at the top of Google for a search term that no one ever types into Google?
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO involves optimising your content for search terms. If you’ve done your keyword research and chosen your keywords, the next step is to ensure you have relevant information on your page. Without any information on your website relating to a chosen keyword, you won’t be indexed for that keyword.
A quick and easy way to drive more traffic to your website is to identify what keywords your website is already indexed for and which pages or URLs are indexed for those keywords. Then, further optimise those pages to perform better.
This can be achieved by adding more high-quality, original content and making the page more user-friendly. Use headers (H1, H2, H3) or subtitles to structure your content, and include images to break up large chunks of text-based content.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO relates to the health, speed, security, usability, and general performance of your website. Google and other search engines favour websites that work well — they load content quickly, are easy to navigate, handle data in line with best practices, and are user-friendly on smaller devices like mobiles.
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO is all about building credibility and authority for your website. This is achieved by having as many external websites as possible link to your website. These links (known as “backlinks”) act as votes of confidence, indicating that other sites trust you and consider you a reliable source of information. Engaging in SEO copywriting services can help produce content that attracts high-quality backlinks.
Not all backlinks are created equal. Links from more credible and authoritative websites will provide more value than those from spammy sites full of low-quality, AI-generated content. Easy wins in this space include partnerships with non-competing businesses for guest posting opportunities, listing your site in local directories, and participating in industry forums and notice boards.
Continuous SEO Improvement
SEO is an ongoing process — there are always opportunities to improve, whether by adding new pages to target new keywords or further optimising existing pages. SEO is also competitive; if other businesses in your industry are active with SEO, you will need to maintain your efforts to keep up with them. If you optimise your website and then leave it untouched for three months while your competitors continuously add to and optimise theirs, they will eventually overtake and outrank you on Google.
Furthermore, Google’s algorithm changes and evolves constantly, so it’s essential to stay updated on the latest criteria and adjust your optimisation strategies accordingly. Working with a professional SEO agency Brisbane can help keep your strategies current and effective.
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