SEO Where to start

What is SEO?

Before you get started, it’s a good idea to know what SEO is! 

Basically, Search Engine Optimisation (known as SEO) is the process of making your website rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). 

With billions of searches everyday, when someone looks for a keyword related to your business, you want your website to be the first result they see. But SEO doesn’t stop there. Just because you’re the first result on Google, doesn’t automatically mean they’ll click on it. And, when they’re on your site, how do you encourage them to stay there, or convert? SEO wraps all of these processes up in a neat bow, to grow your brand… 

I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves. You wanted to know where to start with SEO. So, we’re going to keep it simple. Follow our guide and you can’t go wrong!

Where to start with SEO?

Know your brand – inside and out

First things first, you need to have a great understanding of your brand. Who is your ideal client, what is your voice and who are your main competitors? 

Asking yourself these questions is a great starting point:

• Who are your top five competitors?
• What does your ideal customer look like? (age, location, job, etc)
• Why will they buy your product/ service?
• What are they looking to achieve? (people don’t want a radiator, they want to keep warm!)

Understanding this information is always the best way to start. In reality, it will help you with any marketing activities.

The importance of keyword research

Before you can optimise your website, you need to do some research. Start by figuring out the keywords that are relevant to your business. These are the words and phrases that people might type into a search engine when looking for your products or services. 

Have a look at your competitors websites and make a long list of keywords that you both rank for. Find any gaps (words they rank for that you don’t) and put this together with your expert industry knowledge to make sure that all bases are covered.

Now it’s time to narrow the list. Start whittling this down until you have around 250 targeted keywords and phrases. There are several tools you can use to find keywords, including Google’s Keyword Planner, Semrush or Ahrefs.

Optimise your site

Once you have a list of keywords, you need to optimise your website to rank for them. This his how you get started:

1. On-page optimisation

As Google crawls through your website, you need to tell it what to do, where to go and how to behave. That’s where on-page optimisation comes in. There are many ways you can make your website search engine friendly, like:

• Creating exceptional, keyword-focused content
• Reviewing your page titles and meta descriptions
• Using header tags (H1, H2, H3) to organise your content
• Adding alt tags to your images
• Making your website mobile-friendly

Creating engaging content that includes your target keywords is one of the most important aspects of any SEO strategy. To grow, you need to keep putting out amazing content on a regular basis. Blogs, guides, case studies and service pages will all help to drive traffic.

At Grow Green, we work with our clients to develop a content strategy that not only targets their audience’s search intent, but provides value and excites readers. This can include blog posts, videos, infographics, and other types of content that help establish our clients as thought leaders in their industry.

2. Off-page optimisation

You’ve now got an exciting website with amazing content, ready to rank. But, unless search engines can trust your site, you’re never going to reach page one.

Off-page optimisation is any SEO strategy that takes place outside of your website. The main aim of this is to make your website seem trustworthy. Just because you create free range, ethically sourced soap doesn’t mean Google knows that!

The best way to build authority is through high-quality backlinks from reputable websites. At Grow Green, we work with our clients to develop a backlink strategy that focuses on earning links from reputable websites in their industry. 

But, you can reach out to partners, register on directories or even drive showstopping PR initiatives. Every link helps to build trust, improving your domain authority (just watch out for spammy links, these will have a negative effect).

There are lots of other off site processes. But, the below list should be enough to get you started:

• Boosting your social media presence
• Making sure your business information is consistent everywhere (name, address, phone number)
• Building a strong online reputation through customer reviews

3. Technical optimisation

Technical optimisation involves optimising the technical aspects of your website. This includes:

• Ensuring your website is fast and has a good page load speed
• Optimising your website for mobile devices
• Fixing broken links and errors
• Ensuring your website is secure with HTTPS

Measuring success: how to track your SEO efforts

It might not be a starting point, but it’s very important. Measuring the success of your SEO efforts helps you understand what’s working and what’s not. At Grow Green, we use a number of tools to monitor our clients campaigns. Giving insights to organic traffic, rankings, and backlinks.

By diving into the data, you can stay ahead of your competitors, adjusting your SEO strategy to keep improving. (It also helps you keep up with those pesky Google algorithm updates! but more on that another day)

In a nutshell…

SEO can seem overwhelming, but with the right approach, it can be a powerful tool for driving traffic to your website. By starting with keyword research and following the steps in this guide, you can start improving your search engine rankings and see the visitors flow in.

SEO needs to be continuous and takes time and expertise to get right. If you need help with your SEO strategy, don’t hesitate to contact Grow Green – we’re here to help!

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