Here is some free SEO advice which will help you improve your SEO and ultimately get better rankings.
1) Select relevant keywords and write about them.
Don’t write lists of keywords or use any form of trickery (like black writing on a black background) for your keywords. It will actually work against you in the long run. Most search engines have cottoned on to these ‘black-hat’ techniques and are punishing sites that use them.
Write full sentences and embed your keywords organically and creatively. Instead of just having a heading saying ‘Plumbing Maitland, Plumbing Services’ write ‘Reliable Plumbing Services in Maitland, Kurri Kurri and Rutherford.’
2) Write for the user, not for the Google-bot.
The biggest thing most webmasters get wrong is to write their content purely for the search engine and they thereby forget their human customers; you know, the ones that actually spend the money. Make sure your content flows, is easily read, and provides an answer to or responds to the search query your customer has used to get to your site.
3) Do your research.
Make sure you target what your customers want. Check search patterns for keywords and find out what people want to find. Fewer and fewer people are searching for broad-terms like ‘Electrician’ and more often they are searching for ‘Electrician to install downlights’ or ‘electricians for a kitchen renovation.’ You should create content that responds to these more targeted search terms; it will make your content more relevant, rank better and ultimately answer the customer’s enquiry leading to a better chance for them contacting you.
4) Use ALT-text.
Alt-text is a description of the image that is shown. Images look great to us but to the search engines, most of the images are invisible. Use the ALT-test to describe what it is you are looking at and help search engines to better understand your content.
Eg. If your image shows you shaping a client’s afro make sure you set your ALT-text as ‘Local Maitland Hairdresser shaping a customers’ afro.’
5) Avoid Black-Hat SEO techniques always.
Avoid these things like the plague; keyword stuffing, invisible text, doorway pages, adding unrelated keywords to the page content or page swapping (changing the webpage entirely after it has been ranked by search engines). They are all bad news and will hurt you in the long-run.
2018 Update: Buying backlinks is a big no, no. Earn your backlinks. Google is smart enough to tell which backlinks are paid (unnatural) and earned (organic). Organic is always best.
6) Link to your content.
As you write your pages be sure to make it easy for your customers to follow the information trail you leave for them. On your homepage you may talk about your accounting services; link to your ‘services’ pages. Not only does it help enforce the keywords it also makes it a much better experience for your customers.
If your site uses HTML and you’re not sure how to embed links, use the below code….
This is your non-linked content and <a href="http://www.linkgoeshere.com">this is the content you want linked</a>
7) Keep your content fresh.
Add or change content as needed to keep it constantly updating. An easy way to do this is to write a blog post every week or add a new service page regularly. You can do this by breaking your services down to more precise offerings.
Eg. instead of having a page on your landscaping website for ‘Services,’ have a page for ‘Retaining Walls, ‘Gardening,’ and ‘Fences.’ Eventually, you can even have ‘Native Gardening,’ ‘Gardening with Roses,’ and ‘Cottage Gardens.’
Good SEO means better rankings, better rankings means more visibility and more visibility means more customers. It takes time for good SEO to take effect but with better execution today you’ll be thanking yourself tomorrow.
