Boost your SEO with 4 powerful tactics

In the ever-evolving digital marketing landscape, staying ahead of the curve is essential to maintaining a competitive edge. Search engine optimisation (SEO) remains a cornerstone of online visibility, yet it’s crucial to adapt your strategies to align with the latest trends and algorithms. Here are four dynamic tactics you can incorporate into your SEO marketing to elevate your rankings and drive organic traffic. 1. Launch a YouTube channel and leverage it on your website Video content continues to dominate online platforms, with YouTube being the second-largest search engine globally. Starting a YouTube channel not only expands your reach to a vast audience but also presents an opportunity to enhance your website’s SEO. Here’s how: Create engaging videos: Produce high-quality, informative videos relevant to your niche. Whether it’s tutorials, product demonstrations, or industry insights, ensure your content is valuable and engaging. It’s best to do face-to-camera, as audiences respond so well to seeing someone’s face, and the YouTube algorithm will likely prioritise it. Optimise for keywords: Conduct keyword research to identify popular search terms within your industry. Incorporate these keywords naturally into your video titles, descriptions, and tags to improve visibility in both YouTube and Google search results. For example, if you have a channel dedicated to SEO, you might like to create a video about “how to boost SEO”. Embed videos on your website: Capitalise on your video content by embedding it strategically across your website. Whether on landing pages, blog posts, or product pages, incorporating videos enhances user engagement and dwell time, signalling to search engines that your site offers valuable multimedia resources. Remember that Google owns YouTube, so it actually counts towards your search results on your website.Identifying and optimising existing high-ranking content is a cost-effective strategy to bolster your SEO efforts. Rather than solely focusing on creating new content, allocate resources to amplify the performance of your top-performing pages. Do this by: Conduct content audits: Assess your website’s analytics to identify pages with high traffic, strong engagement metrics, and favourable search rankings. These pages represent valuable assets that can be further optimised for increased visibility. Optimise meta titles and descriptions: Refine meta titles and descriptions to align with current search intent and maximise click-through rates. Incorporate relevant keywords while maintaining readability and relevance to entice users to click through to your site. Refresh and expand content: Update outdated information, add fresh insights, and expand upon existing content to provide comprehensive resources for users. Refreshing content not only enhances its relevance but also signals to search engines that your site is regularly updated and authoritative within your niche. 3. Create link-worthy assets Earning backlinks from reputable websites remains a crucial component of SEO, indicating to search engines the credibility and authority of your site. To attract quality backlinks, focus on creating compelling, shareable assets that resonate with your target audience. Here are some examples: Infographics and data visualisations: Condense complex information into visually appealing infographics or data visualisations. Presenting data in a digestible format increases the likelihood of other websites citing and linking back to your content. Comprehensive guides and whitepapers: Develop in-depth guides or whitepapers addressing common pain points or industry challenges within your niche. Position your content as a valuable resource and outreach to relevant websites or influencers to encourage linking and sharing. These make the ultimate lead magnets, too – which are excellent tools for collecting email addresses. And you know that I’m a huge fan of email marketing because it’s so effective. Interactive tools and calculators: Engage your audience with interactive tools or calculators tailored to their needs. Whether it’s a budget calculator, interactive map, or diagnostic tool, providing value-added resources encourages user interaction and increases the likelihood of earning backlinks. You can see how valuable these would be if you’re in the finance or accounting industry, right? 4. Prioritise mobile-first optimisationWith the proliferation of mobile devices, adjusting your website for mobile users is no longer optional—it’s imperative for SEO success. Google’s mobile-first indexing spotlights the mobile version of your site for ranking and indexing, making mobile optimisation a top priority. Here’s what you can do:Responsive design: Ensure your website employs a responsive design that adapts seamlessly to various screen sizes and devices. A mobile-friendly layout enhances user experience and reduces bounce rates, telling the search engines that your site is user-centric. Essentially that means you need to make sure all your content fits on a tiny screen as well, without it all wonky looking. Reduce page speed: Mobile users expect super fast-loading websites, and page speed directly impacts user satisfaction and search rankings. Minimise unnecessary elements, leverage browser caching, and compress images to improve page speed and overall performance on mobile devices. It should ideally be under 3 seconds load time for positive SEO. Mobile-friendly content: Craft concise, scannable content optimised for mobile consumption. Use shorter paragraphs, descriptive subheadings, and bullet points to facilitate easy reading on smaller screens. By implementing these four focuses into your SEO marketing efforts, you can position your website for sustained growth, increased visibility, and improved organic rankings. And it doesn’t matter what the economy is doing, you can still remain ahead of the game and get the sales and clients that you desire. Get an SEO strategy today.

Choose Your Own SEO Strategy Adventure

Four different SEO strategies for you to tackle I know a lot of us are always trying to configure our SEO and tweak it here and there to really suck the juice out of it. And I encourage that. SEO is an ongoing puzzle. It’s not just “set and forget” type of marketing activity. So with that in mind, I’ve proposed four overarching SEO strategies or components of an SEO strategy that I encourage you to look at this year. Now, depending on the size of your site or your brand, this can be a really overwhelming task. It might even take a whole team to action if you don’t have the resources; I suggest picking one of the following four strategies and really perfecting it to the best of your ability this year. Anything you can do will make a difference. Like I said above, if you don’t have the resources to tackle all of this yourself or have a team to help you, I recommend picking one of the four above, focusing on it and getting it really right before moving on to the next. You are better off diving in and making something work rather than doing bits and pieces here in there. So my recommendation is to pick either one or four above if you haven’t done a deep dive on either before. SEO strategy 1 – keyword optimisation Keyword optimisation is the process of researching, selecting, and incorporating keywords into your website content, meta tags, and other elements in order to improve your website’s visibility and ranking on search engines such as Google. The goal of keyword optimisation is to identify the keywords and phrases your target audience is searching for and to make sure that your website appears as high as possible in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for those keywords. The process of keyword optimisation involves researching and identifying the right keywords, analysing the competition for those keywords, incorporating the keywords into your website content in a natural and effective way, and continuously monitoring and refining your keyword strategy to ensure maximum results. Keyword optimisation is an important part of search engine optimisation SEO, as it can help drive more traffic to your website and increase your online visibility and credibility. The following are some techniques and methods you can apply if keyword optimisation is your chosen SEO strategy for this year. Again, if you work with limited resources, pick one and perfect it until you move on to the next.  Keyword optimisation techniques for 2023 I want to explain a few of these terms a little further since they may be new to you.  What are LSI keywords? LSI (latent semantic indexing) keywords are semantically related words and phrases that provide context and meaning to the main keyword. They help search engines understand the content’s topic and theme and can improve search ranking for the target keyword. The use of LSI keywords can also help avoid keyword stuffing and make the content appear more natural and relevant to the user. Examples of LSI keywords for the main keyword “pizza” could include “toppings”, “delivery”, “New York style”, “crust”, etc. What are topic clusters? Topic clusters are a content marketing and SEO strategy that organises related articles into interlinked groups, with one main piece of content serving as the “pillar” that provides comprehensive information on a particular topic.  Each cluster consists of the pillar content and several “cluster” articles that are linked to it, providing in-depth coverage of specific subtopics related to the pillar content. For example, where my main page (and SEO keyword and content focus) is “copywriter“, I would focus on creating and improving content (specifically blog articles) that are directly related to “copywriter”. That might look like topics such as “what’s it like being a copywriter”, “how to become a copywriter”, “what you need to know when hiring a copywriter”, etc.  Using topic clusters helps establish the website as an authority on the subject (which we know is vital for the EEAT formula), improves user experience, and increases the chances of ranking higher in search results for relevant keywords. What are local keywords? Local keywords are words that include a geographic location, such as a city, region, or neighbourhood. They are used to optimise content for local search queries. These keywords are used to target users who are searching for products or services in a specific area. Examples of local keywords include “pizza delivery in Adelaide”, “best hair salon in Melbourne”, and “coffee shops in Sydney”.  The use of local keywords can help improve a website’s visibility in local search results, attract local customers, and drive more relevant traffic to the website. If you’re a brick-and-mortar business, you would absolutely make this one of your SEO strategy priorities. Especially if you rely on face-to-face service as your business. When you run an online and remote business like mine, it’s not so important. But I still occasionally look at doing as, say, a third-level priority when it comes to improving my keywords and SEO activities. The way to tell whether you need to invest your time in this is by doing good quality SEO keyword research, and if you notice a lot of search volume for, say, “copywriter Adelaide” (if that is your local area), then it’s definitely worth popping it on your to-do list. What is user intent? User intent refers to the goal, need, or purpose behind a user’s search query. Understanding user intent is crucial in providing relevant and valuable content that satisfies the user’s search request. User intent can range from informational (searching for information), navigational (searching for a specific website), transactional (searching to purchase a product or service), or commercial (researching products or services before making a purchase).  By understanding and targeting user intent, marketers and content creators can optimise their content to better match the user’s expectations, improve search ranking, and increase user engagement and satisfaction. You can see in the image below that SemRush tells

Are You Ignoring This One Vital Thing for SEO?

Website speed is one of the key factors in improving your SEO and creating an effortless user experience. ‘In a 2019 survey by Unbounce, nearly 70% of consumers admitted that page speed impacts their willingness to buy from an online retailer.’ ‘The first five seconds of page-load time have the highest impact on conversion rates. (Portent, 2019)’ and ‘website conversion rates drop by an average of 4.42% with each additional second of load time (between seconds 0-5).’ SEMrush declares that page load time is a primary ranking factor. It also effects conversion rate too. ‘A 1-second delay in your site speed can result in a 7% reduction in conversions.’ Why do you need to improve your site speed? There are several reasons why it’s important to improve the speed of a website: How to improve site speed There are many ways to improve the speed of a website. Here are a few general tips: These are just a few general tips to improve the speed of a website. It’s also important to regularly monitor the performance of your website and make adjustments as needed to ensure it remains fast and efficient. See below for tools that can help with this. How do you optimise images for site speed? There are several ways to optimise images for site speed: How many plugins should I use for good site speed? The number of plugins that you should use on your website depends on the specific needs of your site and how well-optimised the plugins are. In general, it’s best to use as few plugins as possible, as each plugin you add to your website can potentially add more code and resources that need to be loaded, which can slow down your website. That being said, there are some plugins that are essential for the functionality of your website and can actually improve the speed of your site. For example, a caching plugin can help speed up your website by storing commonly used resources on the user’s computer, so they don’t have to be downloaded each time the user visits the website. It’s important to carefully evaluate the need for each plugin you are considering using and to only use those that are necessary for the functionality and performance of your website. If you do use multiple plugins, make sure to keep them up to date and optimise them for performance. It’s also a good idea to regularly review the plugins you are using and consider removing any that are no longer necessary or that may be slowing down your website. How do plugins slow your website down? Plugins can slow down a website for a few reasons: By using as few plugins as possible and carefully evaluating the need for each plugin you use, you can help ensure that your website performs well and loads quickly. This is something that trips me up all the time. I love a good plugin, but I tend to overload my site with them and forget to disable those that are no longer working for me. And then my site crashes or takes ages to load. Oops! It’s also important to keep your plugins up to date and to optimise them for performance to ensure that they don’t slow down your website. How do you enable compression on your website? There are a few ways to enable compression on your website: Use a plugin: Many popular content management systems (CMS) have plugins that can enable compression on your website. For example, WordPress has several plugins that can enable Gzip compression, such as W3 Total Cache and Autoptimize. Use mod_deflate: If you are using an Apache web server, you can enable compression by using the mod_deflate module. To do this, you will need to edit the .htaccess file in the root directory of your website and add the following code: <IfModule mod_deflate.c>   # Compress HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Text, XML and fonts AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript   AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-fontobject AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-OpenType   AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-otf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-TrueType AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-ttf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/XML AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/opentype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/otf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/ttf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml   AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/x-icon AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/CSS AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/HTML AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/XML </IfModule> Use nginx: If you are using an nginx web server, you can enable compression by adding the following code to your nginx.conf file: gzip on; gzip_comp_level 6; gzip_vary on; gzip_min_length 1000; gzip_proxied any; gzip_types text/plain text/CSS application/JSON application/javascript application/x-javascript text/XML application/XML application/xml+rss text/javascript; gzip_buffers 16 8k; These are just a few ways to enable compression on your website. It’s important to note that compression can impact the performance of your server, so it’s essential to carefully consider the trade-offs between increased performance and increased resource usage when enabling compression. What is a content delivery network? A content delivery network (CDN) is a distributed network of servers that delivers web pages and other web content to users based on their geographic location, the origin of the webpage, and the content delivery server. CDNs are used to improve the performance and speed of websites by reducing the distance that data needs to travel between the user and the server and by offloading traffic from the main server. CDNs work by storing copies of a website’s content on servers located in strategic locations around the world. When a user requests content from a website, the CDN will serve the content from the server that is closest to the user, reducing the amount of time it takes for the content to be delivered. CDNs are commonly used by websites that receive a large amount of traffic or that serve users from around the world, as they can help improve the performance and reliability of the website. CDNs can also enhance the security of a website by providing features such as DDoS protection, SSL/TLS encryption, and rate limiting. How to use a content delivery network A content delivery network (CDN) is a network of

3 Tips for Getting More Website Traffic: Simple Strategies You Can Try

It can be really frustrating when website traffic is low, and you are not sure what to do about it. There are so many website owners who find themselves in this position. And they don’t know where to start. If that sounds like you, then the good news is that there are plenty of things you can try out! In this article I discuss three simple strategies for getting more website traffic. Tip 1: where is your traffic coming from? The first thing you need to do is think about where your website traffic is currently coming from. A website might have a significant amount of website traffic in the form of links and mentions on other websites but that isn’t necessarily reflective of their online presence. It helps if you can identify what type(s) of website traffic are driving visitors to your site: whether it be links, shares etc. So that you know which channels should be prioritised when trying to increase website traffic. As well as how much time they will require each day (or week). If it’s clear that SEO brings in the majority of your traffic, then you know to spend a fair chunk of your marketing time and budget investing in that and growing it even bigger so that it works for you. Use Google Analytics to ascertain how many people visit your site and when and where they are acquired from. If there seems like too many different sources coming into your website and all roughly bring in an even amount of visitors, then prioritise the channels that you enjoy making content for the most or that you have the most content available for. Eg, if you are a photographer then it’s safe to say that Instagram would be a great platform for you to build on the great visual content you can share. Tip 2: Changes are important The second thing you need to do is take a look at your website and see if there are any changes that could be made in order to optimise the user experience for people coming from different sources. This will help them stay longer on the site so that your SEO will improve. For example, on some websites content does not load as quickly when viewed through mobile devices or Google Chrome compared with other browsers such as Firefox or Safari. Or certain pages will give an error which prevents them from loading entirely. If this sounds like something you’re experiencing too, then try changing how content loads by installing scripts so that speed doesn’t affect website visitors’ ability to view information they were looking for. Google Search Console is another handy tool that will help you work out site speed and user experience details such as how your site looks on mobile. Don’t forget to test website speed to see how fast your site loads before and after making changes. There are plenty of free website speed checkers available. Tip 3: SEO In the third part of this blog post, I will talk about optimising website content for SEO purposes so that visitors stay longer on your website. Which can ultimately lead to higher conversion rates. To do so, you’ll want to make sure that every page has a title tag (or description) with relevant keywords in it; include meta descriptions as well if possible; and use headings and subheadings throughout the text. Additionally, writing unique content from scratch (try using my blog post template) is always better than copying or aggregating information found elsewhere online because it helps search engines identify what your website should rank for more easily. To recap, this article has discussed three fundamental strategies for getting more website traffic. The first thing you need to do is think about where your website traffic is currently coming from (and build on that), the second thing you need to do is take a look at any changes that could be made in order to optimise user experience and finally, SEO which will help visitors stay longer on your site. There are plenty of free tools available such as Google Search Console or Google Analytics which can give information on how long people visit your site and what type(s) of source drives them there. Get help getting more website traffic with my SEO SERVICES.

How to use the Yoast plugin for meta tags

Now that you have installed the Yoast plugin and have written your website content, follow along the step by step instructions below to input your meta tags into your WordPress site. I find that I only need the free version of this WordPress plugin for most websites. You might like to experiment with the paid premium version, depending on your needs. Premium is great if you are beginner at SEO and need extra guidance or you have a complex site that you want to start streamlining. At the bottom of your web page or blog post you will see some fields to fill in.  Step one Fill out the focus keyphrase field with just that. You would have already worked out the primary SEO keyword or phrase in your SEO research and content planning phase. Step two Secondly, fill in the SEO title section, like I have below. If the line underneath is orange, that indicates that there are not enough words in their to have optimum impact. Technically, it doesn’t matter if you use sentence case (capital letter at start of sentence only) or title case (every word capitalised). I have experimented with both and haven’t seen any results either way but you might like to use title case for ease of reading, Step three Insert your slug in the designated field. Seperate each word with a hyphen and be sure to include your keyword. If you don’t fill this out manually, the slug will automatically become the title of your post. Step four Finally, include a meta data description of up to 160 characters (this can change because it’s based on character width these days instead of character count). Remember to make the description like a little sales blurb of why someone should read your page. Step five Once you’ve filled in the Yoast fields, you can have a look at how the snippet will show up in Google (if Google decides to index it). It will look like this, once all put together: If you want to go a step further you can go through the checklist under SEO analysis which will tell you how you can improve your SEO for that post or webpage. An even further step is to improve the readability. But as I’ve mentioned in How to use meta tags in WordPress, please take this with a pinch of salt. Now you can input your meta tags into WordPress using the Yoast plugin and expect to see some improvements in the way your SEO is structured and priortised. If you’re unsure how to write compelling and effective meta tags, please get in contact for a quote today.

How to use meta tags in WordPress

The meta tags (sometimes I refer to this as meta data) typically consists of a description, title and slug. Meta data is an attribute summing up a web page. It generally appears when someone does a Google search. Fun fact: I once wrote more than 100 meta data descriptions for a well known optometry brand in less than two days. No wonder I have RSI! Meta data description The description is a snippet of 160 characters maximum and resides underneath the SEO title or meta data title. If you look at the image below, you’ll see the paragraph that starts with ‘Isn’t it time you showcased…’ That’s the meta data description. ‘It’s best to keep meta descriptions long enough that they’re sufficiently descriptive, so we recommend descriptions between 50–160 characters.’ Meta data title The title is the heading or title part you see when search results appear. This is most likely the thing you will pay attention to the most when performing a Google search.  This is the title part of your web page that will sum up what is written on the page. It generally appears at the top of browsers, SERP and when sharing via external sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn etc.  See the image below. Jones the Writer Copywriting: Looking For The Best Copywriter? Is the title. Meta data slug The slug is the end part of the URL of your website. Use your identified keyword here for improving your search results. It is purported that keywords placed in your SEO title and slug DO contribute to your SEO but keywords will likely be disregarded in the description. I tend to try and pop them in (at least semantic keywords) anyway. But not if it sacrifices a solid call to action and enticing copy. Remembering that the aim is to get people to click on your link.  To find out what Google is using as your meta data at the moment, go to Google and type in site:yoursitedomain.com Using meta tags in WordPress The easiest way to incorporate meta tags in WordPress is to use a plugin. If you’re not a coder, there are some helpful plugins for WordPress to add your meta tags in. Plugins are designed for the average WordPress user to be able to navigate.  Yoast is one of the most popular and user friendly.  How to install Yoast plugin Once logged in to your WordPress website, click on plugins in the dashboard.  Click Add New. In the search box on the right hand side, type in Yoast and hit enter. Yoast SEO should appear in the search results below it.  Click Install Now. Wait until it has finished installing and then click Active. In the left hand side column of your dashboard, you should see SEO with the Yoast logo. By clicking on that a drop down/more options of menu items will appear. Click on general and begin the configuration process. Follow the supplied wizard if you are not familiar with WordPress plugins. Read How to use Yoast plugin for meta tags on WordPress next. What else you need to know about meta data tags You can go back to old web pages and posts and fill these in. It doesn’t have to apply for newly published or yet to be published content.  Popping in a keyword in the keyword field in Yoast does not affect SEO. This is purely a tool for you to see how effectively you are using the keyword throughout your meta data, image alt tags and content.  Create meta tags for each web page, category page and blog post. Avoid creating generic tags for the entire site.  If you have added in or updated a lot of meta data, it could be worth resubmitting your sitemap via Google Search Console, so you prompt Google to reindex and research your site.  Make sure the meta data accurately describes what content can be found on the page.  My advice is to take Yoast’s SEO readability checklist with a grain of salt. Although it pays to write great content, I find this a little pedantic and may not necessarily affect your SEO. It could gear the writing to be a little more formal and less natural and with the latest release of BERT, we now know that natural is the way to go. Don’t spend hours trying to figure this all out. Hire a professional SEO writer like me to take care of writing meta data, SEO keyword research and uploading for you.

What are WordPress plugins and why do you need them?

When it comes to blogging or starting a website, a plugin refers to a piece of software that adds specific functionality to an existing program. A good example would be the customisations options, like ad block and VPN functionality, that can be added to most modern browsers. However, with the increased popularity of the WordPress platform, plugin is now commonly used as the short version of WordPress plugins.  What are WordPress plugins? WordPress plugins are pieces of add on software that extends the functionality and adds new features to your WordPress website. They contain code that helps you enhance, customise and modify a WordPress site without having to touch a single line of code. Which is great news for those who want to start and manage their own websites, without having technical web development skills.  WordPress plugins are usually written in PHP but may also include HTML, CSS and JavaScript. They add specific features or functionality, for example, if you need your WordPress website to load faster, you may need a WordPress plugin to improve cache functionality. Why do you need WordPress plugins? It is quite rare to see any WordPress website using only its out of the box features. WordPress plugins help you create visually stunning multifunctional websites without changing the core program code. WordPress plugins can help you design and speed up your website, add special effects and functionality and do so much more. There are over 55099 free WordPress plugins and about twice that number of paid ones. They are all designed to integrate seamlessly with specific versions of WordPress. Plugins have become so ubiquitous with WordPress that there is a saying along the lines of ‘there’s a plugin for that’which means that there is a plugin available for pretty much anything you want to customise on WordPress.  Free versus paid WordPress plugin Free WordPress plugins are…well, free to download and use. Although most of them come with advanced paid features you have to unlock. Often, they are available on the WordPress depository and can be downloaded and installed on your plugin page. Paid WordPress plugins, on the other hand, have to be downloaded from their individual providers and uploaded onto your WordPress website before it can be used. It’s just like any freemiumstyle software where the basic features are supplied for free and any advanced or premium features require a fee. Which WordPress plugins do you need? This depends on your needs and what you want to achieve with your website. But some absolute fundamentals are: Yoast (to help with your website SEO) something to connect your viewers to your subscriber list a plugin to ward off the spam comments a chatbot to address customer queries live – I use LiveChat one for security and one for backup. Check out this list of recommended WordPress plugins for beginners.  How to install WordPress plugins? Check out this super handy instructional video on how to install basic WordPress plugins. Isn’t it time you got high performing website copywriting?

Writing for the web – contact us

How to write contact us page for your website Did you know that the contact page is quite crucial when writing for the web? When creating a website, most business owners get caught up with the look of their home, blog and sales pages. Rarely do they prioritise the look and feel of the “Contact Us” page. Even the most beautiful and sophisticated websites out there make the mistake of having dull and uninspiring contact pages.  Surprisingly, the contact us page is one of the most visited pages on any website and one of the best ways to direct customers to your sales or customer service team. For most businesses, it is the main reason why they have a website in the first place.  Here are some effective writing for the web tips to polish up your contact page.  Keyword research Keyword research is vital when writing content for most pages on our website so why not the contact us page as well? By researching the kind of information your potential customers are searching for, you can position your contact us page as an effective lead magnet. You’ll be surprised at the number of organic leads you can have just by carrying out proper SEO keyword research and writing high quality content using this information. Stating clearly how you wish to be contacted  This is another obvious mistake that most websites are guilty of: not stating their preferred mode of contact. It is not enough to pile up all of your contact information on your contact us page if you don’t check your messages regularly. This page should be very clear on how you wish to be contacted, as well as when. Include opening hours or best available times, which will make all the difference in securing your sales. If someone has to play “phone tag” with you, it will likely result in frustration and lack of motivation to follow through with booking an appointment or making a sale from your potential client’s end.  Don’t make it an orphan page An orphan page is a webpage that doesn’t link to or from any other page on a website. This makes them almost impossible to find unless they are included in a menu. Although the contact us page is usually the last page to be created when designing a website, it is important to ensure that it redirects back to other relevant pages. Such as: Costs Services FAQ and conversion pages (such as shop etc).  This doesn’t just help with SEO but also helps visitors navigate your website and points them to any important information they may have missed. Doing so can also save time and resources in the business. If your customer can find answers directly on your website without having to talk to one of your salespeople or admin staff, you’ve made the process much easier! I like to remind people that your website is just another customer service representative for your business! Work on the meta data description The contact us page of your website gets crawled by search engine bots just like other pages and having a well structured meta data description will help with your visibility. Meta data, in this case, refers to your tags and page title. All of these features come together to boost your page visibility. Also, your website’s Domain Authority (DA) score is awarded after analysing every page including the contact us page.  Think of it as a conversion tool The whole point of creating a website is to improve your visibility and get more leads for your business. And the contact us page is a powerful conversion tool in your arsenal. Aside from providing your contact information or contact form, you can also use the contact us page to capture leads and email sign ups, provide information and invite visitors to connect further. Tip: remember to add your social media icons and links as well as enews subscribe link, so they can keep connected. It’s tricky because you generally want to keep the amount of text short but you still need to really convince people to contact you. However, one they have made the decision to contact you, they go from being a cold lead to a warm lead and it’s such a smaller gap in convincing them to give you money. Believe it or not, the contact page is your last minute attempt to really, truly convince them you are the one for them! In an ideal world by this point, you have completely convinced your potential customer or client that they want to buy from you, even before the email/phone call or adding to their shopping cart. However, this is an opportunity to add any extra relevant information that a potential client or customer may have missed somewhere in the UX journey. Make it friendly and interactive Most people will visit your contact us page because they need help with something, they have a question or they have a problem to which they hope you have the answer or solution. Having a friendly and interactive contact us page content will go a long way to ensuring that they actually do contact you.  While many sites throw up a contact us page as a quick after-thought, you should be dedicating a lot more time and care to your contact page because, for many brands, it’s the beginning of your relationship with potential customers. For example, instead of having the default Contact Us title, you can switch it up with ‘What can we do for you?’ or ‘How can we help you?’ Your content should also be written in a conversational tone that conveys friendliness and professionalism, which is a key part of writing for the web. The most important thing to remember is that your contact page is an integral part of your website. So, take the time to give it a brand look and feel that your customers will love.

SEO statistics for website traffic

If it seems like I bang on about SEO a lot, it’s probably because I do. It’s the absolute crux of your digital marketing strategy and increasing website traffic. In case I haven’t convinced you of the importance of refining your SEO more, here are some illuminating SEO statistics. I’ve also highlighted what the statistic means for you and your website.  Long tail keywords More than 50% of searches are over four words long. This is what is known as long tail keywords. What this means for you: That some of your SEO content articles or web pages need to factor in long tail keywords. Instead of writing content for single words, for example one of my keywords is “copywriter”, I’ve optimised a web page for marketing for small business step by step workbook.  It’s also wise to optimise for questions. Make sure your content is answering questions. An example on my site is “what is copywriting?” Article length The average Google first page result contains 1,890 words.  What this means for you: You might not be writing enough content! Although data doesn’t lie, I continue to have (and have seen clients consistently have) exceptional results with content 500 to 800 words. Which often comes about by posting regular content. If you don’t post regularly, the experiment with longer SEO content articles and monitor your website traffic results. Read my post: how long should a blog post be? Organic or nothing 70 to 80% of search engine users are only focusing on the organic results. What this means for you: That although Google Ads might be an important part of your marketing strategy, organic search could be more important and more valuable for you to put your time into. If nearly all people are completely visually bypassing Google Ads, you could be wasting your money. Implementing some SEO activities will help increase your website traffic. What attention span? 55% spent fewer than 15 seconds actively on a page. What this means for you: Your content needs to be super snappy and short. All whilst being interesting. Experiment with inserting a powerful call to action halfway through your content as well as at the end of your content article.  First page 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results. What this means for you: If your web page or post is not ranking of the first page then at least three quarters of people searching for your keywords or topics won’t even see that you exist. Let alone click on the link! You’re barely even in the game. There are ten organic results on every SERP. If none of your targeted keywords are ranking in the top ten results, then pick one to focus on and do your utmost to get it to rank on the first page and you might have a chance at better website traffic. Organic website traffic An average of 51% of all website traffic is generated from organic searches. What this means for you: If you’re spending no time or marketing budget on SEO (the practice of optimising your site to take advantage of organic searches) then you are most likely missing out on the possibility of fifty per cent more website traffic.  What’s more, ‘In addition to improving your brand identity and your company’s online presence, statistics show organic traffic captures over 40% of revenue.’ Ready to get the website traffic you deserve?

SEO questions: page authority and domain authority

You may have come across the terms page authority and domain authority when reading about SEO and wondered what they mean. As an SEO writer, it’s imporant that I educate clients on these terms. In this article, I’ll explain what both terms are and how they affect your visibility online. What is page authority? Simply put, page authority (PA) is a numerical score that predicts how a webpage will perform on search engine result pages (SERPs). PA scores rate the performance of each specific webpage from 1 (bad) to 100 (excellent) using ranking algorithms.  How are PA scores calculated?PA ranking was developed by the SEO company, Moz. And is based on specific data from their web index. It take factors several things including quality of page content (what you’ve written and the images and how useful it is to your audience) and domain authority. It also uses shrewd machine learning to predict how that page will rank across thousands of SERPs. This produces a comparative metric showing how well different webpages rank using a 100 point scale. You can improve your score (and thus your SEO) but it does depend on your starting score. Funnily enough, it is easier to grow from 20 to 30 than it is to grow from 60 to 70. In most cases, it is slow and difficult to get a score greater than 75. Pages higher than this will often be found on really high performing sites such as The New York Times and similar.   Building your page authority for SEO Page authority is an aggregate score comprised of different metrics making it hard to influence directly. However, there are several ways you can try and improve your score, which will also help with your SEO.  Link buildingLink building is the process of creating links on other website pages that point back to your own. These links (called backlinks) will increase your page trust and relevance scores in search engines. Here are some excellent link building techniques.  Guest postingAnytime you publish an article on a site that shares content related to yours, you can embed backlinks to help readers to find out more from your site. This will establish you as an authority on the topic and increase your visibility. Guest or cross posting is one of my most recommend techniques to increasing your SEO and website traffic. Especially if you are in the early stages of your SEO strategy.  Forums and directoriesAnother good practice is submitting your links on large forums and web directories (such as business directories). You can link people back to your website by answering specific questions on forums and dropping your link for them to learn more. What is domain authority?  ​Domain authority (DA) is another SEO ranking score developed by Moz. But in this case, it predicts how well a whole website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs), rather just a single web page. DA scores range from 1 to 100 with higher scores showing a better ability to rank.  How are DA scores calculated? ​Domain authority scores are calculated by analysing several factors including the total amount of links and root domain age. This score is used to compare different websites and track the ranking progress of a website over time. This is a composite score that varies more frequently because it covers more data. Your DA score can also be affected by the performance of other websites and this makes it difficult to influence. Improving your DA Improving your domain authority is much harder than influencing your page score. This is done to maintain competition and encourage websites to always publish high quality content. The best way to improve your DA is by improving your overall SEO both onpage and off site. But— I cannot say this enough— the most powerful way to improve your SEO is to consistently keep creating high quality content on your website, especially blog posts. You need to be blogging weekly. Fortnightly at most. Limitations of PA and DA Even though both scores are considered to be an accurate estimate of a website’s performance on SERPs, these metrics are actually not used by Google (or any other search engine) in analysing search rankings and have no effect on SERPs. However, they are still a good indication of performance and quality of your website. You can also use it as a barometer of how well another site is performing so you know which beneficial sites to pitch your guest posting to.  Why are PA and DA important for good SEO? Having an objective audit of your website performance is a good way to boost SEO. The good part is that page authority and domain authority both share a mutually beneficial relationship. DA improvements on your website will help boost your PA score and vice versa.  The trick is to use these metrics strategically to track your SEO efforts and see how your website performs under different circumstances over time. How to check your domain authority Check your DA here. If it’s low (think lower than 50) it’s time to start implementing some excellent written SEO content.  Hire a freelance copywriter that knows SEO to help improve your website today.

SEO keywords 101

Getting to know what SEO keywords are More than sixty thousand searches go through Google every single day. I- and others- cannot stress enough the importance of SEO. Without it, you are basically invisible. Google has an algorithm that it uses to rank pages and websites that are searched for. Updating your website to please this algorithm is this fabulous marketing practice that we call SEO! Understanding the exact mechanics of the algorithm is for the aficionados (which is mainly trial and error as Google is not very forthcoming with the exact algorithm facets they focus on). But there are some general guiding principles that you can work with to ensure that you’re in the game. And I can promise that if you’re not even covering the basics, then you are not even in the game, let alone have a chance against your competitors.  Perhaps the easiest and quickest strategy is to have a look at your words. Do they match searchable content? Have you done your SEO keyword research to make sure you are optimising your website for keywords that actually gets searched for?  Are you making use of semantic and longtail keywords as well? Keyword search terms are becoming more complex. Recently at least half of search terms are four words or more, making longtail keywords become increasing important. That means it’s more important for me to optimise for a longtail keyword phrase such as ‘hiring a great copywriting service’ as opposed to ‘copywriter’. It’s important to strategically base your content (written and images) around your primary keywords and other relevant key terms as much as possible without making the content sounding naff. But make sure you don’t overdo it with keyword stuffing or keyword cannibalization. Search engines will recognise this and will not rank your site. It’s quite the precarious balance! Modern SEO best practices places more of an emphasis on quality of a website, rather than quantity of keywords. This means it’s more important to have relevant and useful content on your site rather than a lot of “spammy” content and sites linking to yours. SEO keywords Keywords are a major ally in boosting your SEO. What words will people search with to find you in the chaos that is the internet? These are the words that you will use that sum up what your website is all about. It’s a good idea to create a list of these words with a reputable keyword planner. I love SEMrush, even though it’s expensive it’s definitely worth it for searching keywords, content and outreach ideas and seeing how you rank for certain words. ​Once you have your keywords identified, you have a base from which you can work and build your static website writing around, plan your webpages, know what images you should upload and what your blogging topics will focus on.  Watch this video on how to search for keywords properly: Want someone to search keywords for you? ​Three top keyword tips for blogging: ​Keyword tip 1Having a blog helps particularly if it is part of your website. Ranking is affected by how recent the content is and with a blog you are updating your content frequently. Keyword tip 2If you are a location based service, rather than just existing online, make sure you use your city and/or state as one of your most prominent keywords. This will help when people are searching. For example, someone may type “robes Hobart” to search for a robe in Hobart. If you sell robes and are located in Hobart or online, you should definitely utilise these keywords. Keyword tip 3Make sure when you upload your images, you are including keywords in their image names and titles as well as their “alt titles”. If you are using WordPress you’ll have both of these fields to fill in when you upload your images. The word must pertain to the image; otherwise you are in violation of Google’s policy. If you violate too many of Google’s rules you are at risk of being penalised by having poor rankings and nobody wants that! This post contains affiliate links which I genuinely do recommend.

What is the best onpage SEO service?

93 per cent of all website visits, searches and shopping begin with a search engine. You may have come across the term onpage SEO service when it comes to digital marketing and wondered what it meant. At first, it may seem like a technical term that doesn’t apply to you and best left for your website developers. Not true! If you have a website, you should be prioritising onsite optimisation and your SEO- always! 57% of B2B marketers stated that SEO generates more leads than any other marketing initiative. Below, you’ll find what you need to know about my onpage SEO service and how to start applying it to your website today. What is onsite optimisation? Onsite optimisation is one of the key factors that make up Search Engine Optimisation (also known as SEO). It is the process of optimising your website by adjusting certain elements to make it search engine friendly.  The following are common steps to take when optimising your website for search engines. Not forgetting all these steps need rigorous SEO keyword research undertaken to make sure you are actually optimising your site for words that people will actually look for.  Optimising your page titles and descriptions (keyword optimisation) The first thing a search engine analyses when crawling your website is the page title and description. The general rule is, make the title length up to 60 characters and the description below 150 characters.  Ensuring that your website is mobile friendly Most people who visit your website will do so from a mobile phone. In fact, more than half of the people reading your website are viewing it on their mobile (or tablet). So it is a great idea to make sure your website performs well (and looks good) on mobiles. You can make use of Google’s mobile-friendly test to analyse your website’s mobile friendliness. This onpage SEO tool will grade your website and offer avenues for improvement.  Setting up internal links Internal links allow users to navigate your website and if they are not well set up, your page visitors may not get to see all the juicy resources and information you have to offer. As well as your services or products that you have that solves the very problem your viewer has come to your website for. It is no longer enough to have links in the main navigation, internal links can also be used to link readers to relevant blog posts and pages on your site.  Optimising your page speed and trust score A faster website boosts user experience and page speed is a major factor in onsite optimisation. You can make use of Google’s page speed insights to find out how to speed up your web pages. Images need to be the right size and not delay loading time.  Publishing SEO blog posts regularly Updating your blog regularly encourages people to visit and boosts your index rankings. People won’t come back to your blog/website if there is nothing new for them to see. Your posts should prioritise SEO but also written in a style that your readers enjoy. Some people say you only need to blog four times a year for Google to recognise you post fresh content but I’m a firm believer in posting two to six times per month.  What is offsite optimisation?​ Search engine optimisations that can be performed away from your website are known as offsite optimisations (or off page optimisation). This is a blanket term that refers to actions you take to promote your website online asides from advertising. Offsite optimisation is comprised of three major factors of importance: authority, trustworthiness and relevance. Here is a useful diagram on the sorts of things that Google supposedly bases their ranking algorithm on.   This usually involves: Link buildingThis is the process of increasing your website’s trust level by having links pointing to your website from other notable websites. You may also see this referred to as backlinking. As a copywriter, I don’t offer this sort of technical or backend SEO so it’s best to work someone who looks after the technical aspects AS WELL AS nailing your onsite optimisation. Social media marketing​Posting updates on social media and building a following who are then directed to your website. Which is more important? Ideally, you’ll need both to rank high in search engines and get on the first page of Google. However, you can start out with onsite optimisation which is considered the foundation before progression offsite. Remembering that 75 per cent don’t scroll past the first pageof search engines when Googling something. Is a copywriter right for onpage SEO? Whilst not all copywriters are trained and experienced in SEO, I definitely am!  We’ve covered the importance of publishing SEO blog posts regularly, however, this is easier said than done. Trying to do the whole work yourself can lead to mental fatigue and you may end up publishing posts that turn your readers away. Plus, it’s one thing to write but it’s quite another to apply SEO best practices to your writing without making it sound clunky and keyword stuffed. Professional writers know how to make your content SEO friendly; flow smoothly and still sound fantastic. They also make sure that your content is well researched error free and optimised with the right H1 and H2 (or even H3 and H4) values.  Here is what my onpage SEO service generally includes: copyediting and proofreading posts and existing page copy updating headings, titles, subtitles, tags internal and external hyperlinks image optimisation appropriate formatting applying SEO best practices meta data descriptions.