What is SEO? How can it help your business?

In the world of marketing, it’s important to be at the front of the pack. In the contemporary market, our success rides and dies on the optimisation of our online presence; this includes our websites, online posts and much, much more.

Our true number 1 client is Google. Google is the maker and breaker of businesses in the modern market. In order to be ranked higher in the Google search results, we need to appease the algorithm in the best ways possible.

Up to 75% of internet users don’t visit the second page of Google, if you ranked page 2 of Google, 750 in 1,000 people won’t even take the time to view your content or buy your service. If you’re not ranked on the first page of Google, why bother?

We’re going to talk you through the best practices to get the most out of your business’s online presence. It sounds like a lot, but read until the end to find out one unheard of solution for all of these issues!

There are ways and means of working the Google algorithm, the easiest methods are:

• Responsive design
• Keywords
• Accessibility
• Metadata
• Keeping your website up to date

Responsive Design? What is this?

The absolute number one rule of web design in the contemporary market. Design your website with mobile in mind first!

Over 90% of internet users are on mobile, that’s a whopping 4 billion people!

This means your website needs to be designed with mobile in mind, it it doesn’t scale correctly or doesn’t function on smaller devices, you’re willingly sacrificing 90% of your web traffic!

What are keywords?

Keywords are found in the content of your web-pages, blog posts or social media posts. When a user browses the internet and types a search query such as ‘Digital Marketing Jobs Birmingham’, Google is going to scour for content with content with keywords matching those the user has searched for.

Free tools to consider for keyword research:

• UberSuggest - Keyword stat analysis
• SparkToro - Find out what your audience is talking about
• SEMrush - Keywords, market analytics & more

Keyword research is a quintessential part of digital marketing, and is one of the major benefits of having an in-house marketer for your business.

Accessibility? How can my website be accessible?

Website accessibility considers individuals who are hard of hearing or sight and need to rely on accessibility features to read your content. Website readability is crucial. Google will index your web-pages for readability, if it isn’t considered accessible you could rank lower in the search results. 

You can make a website readable to users and Google by:

• Adding alt text to your images
• Using semantic elements such as
  ,

  ,
• Using suitable colour palettes that don’t make for hard reading or eye strain

What is Metadata?

Website metadata sits within the tags of your code. Your digital marketing colleagues should be responsible for handling this.

Metadata dictates how Google perceives your website. Imagine the first page of a book where you see the author name, publishing data and any additional notes, the metadata is this but for your website.

Meta tags in particular are what your digital marketers should be in charge of managing. A meta title tag will tell the browser what to display in the tab when your website is open:

Other meta tags can establish what keywords your website represents, so that Google knows whether your website is a relevant search result. Other tags decide what to display when your website is linked on another domain:

Keep your website up to date!

How do I keep my website up to date?

Treat your website like an establishment. Would you visit a restaurant that looked like a derelict building? No, and Google will treat your website the same if it hasn’t been updated in a while, or has redundant content & dead links contained within.

Your digital marketers should handle this, by recycling dead content and creating blog posts. A major advantage of implementing a blog into your company website is constant fresh content. SEO tactics such as the keywords and semantic elements discussed earlier can also be implemented into blog posts to help them appear in the Google search feed! Blogs are powerful.

How do I manage all this, and still do my job?

We hear this question, and we have the solution.

What if you could have a full-time, dedicated employee handling all these caveats of SEO for you, as well as handling other digital marketing duties such as email marketing, content creation and competitor research? All this and they receive funded one-to-one on the job training?

What could a Digital Marketing Apprentice provide for my company?

A Digital Marketing Apprentice is formally trained in Search Engine Optimisation Techniques and can handle all the SEO needs of your company. This includes optimising your site for Google rankings, creating blog content, managing your metadata and all the other facets of SEO.

As well as this, Apprentices are formally trained in:

• Principles of SEO
• Principles of Marketing
• Principles of coding
• Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns
• Social Media Management & Content Creation
• Production of branded company material (PDF’s, flyers etc.)

Does this interest you? Let’s talk!