Effective SEO: navigating the Google maze

Unless you work in the industry, SEO can be one of the most frustrating factors about your digital presence. By the time some clients come across our services they are very grateful to discover we offer a fully managed SEO service and just want us to make it all go away. A huge amount of this frustration comes from Google’s SEO goalposts seeming to move so quickly they become a blur. Thankfully there are plenty of ways to counteract the ever-changing landscape, and a few constants too. Below we’ll look at a few of the main factors that make up a solid SEO campaign.

Restore Balance

While a plan might start out as a well thought out and balanced approach, it can become skewed over time. It’s easy to get sucked into one particular aspect of SEO and lose sight of the bigger picture. The Internet is a fluid environment, so your approach to SEO must incorporate a little flexibility to reflect this.

This flexibility must be built on the back of meaningful data, presented in a way that’s actionable. We produce monthly activity reports that allow us to take a results based approach, constantly tuning your SEO for optimal impact, while providing you with useful data.

Taking a step back and reviewing what is happening on a practical level, not just what your plan says should be happening, is a good way to gain some perspective and restore balance. In order for this to happen you must first have an accurate picture of what constitutes a good SEO campaign.

A Solid SEO Campaign Plan

In addition to keeping everything algorithm friendly there are many unique factors for each business to consider. Do you use social resources? Do you have a blog, or use a third party blogging site? What industry factors need to be taken into account?

The list of questions goes on and on. Using facts established through data and analysis can help to steer your path. Turning this data into a meaningful and effective plan can be a little trickier. Most business owners understand the basics of SEO, but the difference between effective SEO and appearing after all your major competitors in search results can come down to fine margins. These fine margins are often decided by using the right people.

If your company takes the wrong approach to SEO it won’t matter how much you spend, you’ll just get more of the wrong approach. Money spent on efficient professionals can be a great leveler for your business, even when competitors are larger than you.

Using the right people ensures you get good advice and a solid plan. Implement this plan efficiently and your SEO will end up with the sort of balance that would make a Ninja jealous.

Practical Tips

Nail your content – The importance of good quality content cannot be understated. Making lots of effort designing your site then filling it with poorly spun gibberish will undo all the good work. Use a professional. High quality content can also be incorporated into your social media campaign, and help with authority building in general. Really memorable content also increases the chance of people either linking to, or quoting your site, which in turn helps your SEO.

Keywords – Keyword research is a fundamental part of SEO. It must incorporate a regular review to compensate for any industry trends or shifts that affect their relevance. This check can also highlight gaps in your keyword strategy.

Meta descriptions – Revising your meta descriptions, especially on pages performing poorly, can help to boost your SEO. Incorporate keywords and key phrases into your new meta description. Although the meta description is not used by Google as a ranking factor, it does influence potential visitors choosing which result to click, so should speak to the searchers intent.

Be responsive – The volume of Internet traffic through smartphones or other mobile devices increases every year. Ensure your website is user friendly no matter what size screen it’s viewed on. A user-friendly mobile experience is crucial in the current climate, and should always be prioritised when building your site.

Make images relevant – Not just the images themselves, but also the text associated with them. Using a relevant keyword as part of an image’s save name helps Google and other search engines to determine what the image is all about. If your image name consists of several words use a hyphen between each one, as Google does not separate words automatically, and hyphens in an image name act like spaces in normal text. Underscores are the bane of an SEO specialist’s existence and should be avoided at all costs.

These are just a few of the key points that will form part of every SEO campaign. There are many more, such as building your URL structure correctly, internal links and blogging, to name just a few.

Perform Regular Tune-Ups

There are some factors that should be checked at regular intervals to ensure your SEO campaign stays on track.

• Identify and resolve any crawl errors
• Redirect redundant links
• Update your sitemap
• Remove blocked resources
• Check broken URLs

The Answer

We are strong believers in playing to your strengths. If a car breaks down you take it to a mechanic, you don’t attempt to learn the intricacies of a modern internal combustion engine. It simply wouldn’t be the best use of your time. You play to your own strengths, and let the mechanic play to his. SEO is the same. The time commitment increases while the effectiveness of the SEO decreases, or even becomes negative, the less experience and knowledge you have.

When you work with Wysi you add a member to your team capable of delivering the best results for your business, while causing you the minimum amount of hassle. As a full service digital agency we leverage all our experience and expertise to deliver smart solutions and effective strategies based on research and good data. Most importantly, you get peace of mind knowing your businesses digital existence is in safe hands, allowing you to concentrate on the things you do best.

Get in touch today and see how we can make your life easier.