Quite simply, you want your website to be attractive to both human beings and search engine spiders. Whilst you’ll be able to judge whether your website is appealing to potential customers in terms of its contents, design and layout, knowing whether it’s pleasing to the bots takes a bit of specialist knowledge.
On-page search engine optimisation
Ask your marketing agency to carry out some research to find the keywords and phrases that customers search for when they’re looking for a business like yours. Then use these keywords as signposts to help the search bots understand what information you have on your website by adding meta tags. These tags are ‘invisible’ to regular web users.
- Title tags – which summarise/preview page contents
- Meta descriptions – to explain web page contents using keywords
- Alt tags – to describe images. This is also good practice since web users that are blind or have visual impairments use screen readers which will read out the description.
- Header tags – to provide further signposting about the content on the page
General tips to get your website seen
By now you’ve probably made sure that your website is mobile-friendly since Google has penalised websites that are not mobile friendly since 2015. If not, do so now because this is essential in order to be ranked in online searches.
Ensure your website is hosted with reputable supplier so that it loads quickly. Munchweb discovered that 75% of users would not go back to a website that was slow to load – taking over 4 seconds.
Provide clear information so that it’s obvious what your business offers. This extends to the text and the design style – both should make it clear what you do for whom.
Keep your website up to date. Blogging regularly helps build relevant content. Companies that blog have 55% more visitors according to HubSpot.
Use Google My Business so your business listing is more easily found on Google search and maps. You can set up a free account and gain control over how your listing appears.
Help to get you found online
Marketing Zone can help small and medium sized businesses to be found on Google. We’ve been designing mobile-friendly websites since they were invented. And we can take existing websites and incorporate on-page optimisation. We can also provide regular blogs and news to help your website to perform better online. Plus, we manage customers’ Google Ad accounts to develop pay-per-click ads and generate leads within agreed limits for spending on advertising.
To find out more speak to Mark at Marketing Zone a call on 07801 419800, or email mark@marketingzone.co.uk