As Google and the other search engines improve their algorithms to better detect the quality and relevance of content on websites, optimisation of content is quickly becoming one of the most important factors in achieving high search rankings.
During the design and creation of a website, SEO is often not in the forefront of the mind of both designers, developers and client alike. This can result in content that is often not ideal for keyword targeting and does not fully represent the high standards of the search engines content quality. In an age where search engines have the capability of selecting only the very best web pages to show in their search results it is essential that almost every page on your site is high quality. To optimise for this it is often necessary to:
Restructure the site for keyword targeting
The pages on your site should be structured into niche sections and related pages should be linked together effectively. The links and page titles should also use relevant search terms based on the keyword research, this helps both SEO and usability of the site.
On page optimisation
The pages on your site that need to rank should be structured in the most effective format for SEO and conversion. This means ensuring that the topic is fully explained, the page is in an easy to follow format, you use the right terminology that users understand (this can be based on regular search terms), any information sources are referenced and linked to and titles, graphics, videos and photos are used effectively.
Additional content added to target relevant keywords
Following the keyword research it is often the case that it is clear that additional pages are needed to serve information that previously you were unaware that consumers were interested in.
Meta title and Description optimisation
This is a matter of editing the information sent to search engines requesting that they show a particular title and description when displaying your pages in the search results. These should be edited to both increase search ranking and click through rate.
Blog posts
A blog is a very effective way of targeting additional keywords and building an audience for your site, Search engines also like sites that are regularly updated. Over time a blog can really boost the volume of content within your site, and as long as you ensure that blog posts are created in a structured and quality format, this will help you pick up alot of additional traffic and conversions from long tail keywords.
Removal or editing of weak pages
When I refer to a weak page I mean one that has no traffic, is very thin content, is copied content from other sites, or has an excessive bounce rate (users enter the page and immediately leave). In any of these circumstances the page should be improved of removed.
It is suggested that approximately 70% of all searches through Google are completely unique, i.e. something which has never been searched before. Very specific search requests such as this are referred to as “long tail keywords”. With the high volumes of content we will create for your site, this will be able to grab good rankings for a high proportion of these long tail keywords. For additional traffic on top of the traffic from the main targeted keyword.