One of the most important, and least understood, aspects of web marketing and promotion is search engine optimisation.
Marketing on social networks and in print advertising is still be incredibly effective, but for many businesses, just having a high position in Google search results can drive vast amounts of sales enquiries your way.
How we set up the web design of a site is important, ensuring everything is coded and tagged in a way that Google can easily find and understand it. Links to you from other websites also shows Google that other people recommend you, but the number one thing you can actively work on is your website copy: the words on the pages of your site.
What is search optimisation?
Google search results are an automated process, where a complex mathematical algorithm ranks websites for their relevance and quality, and that ranking decides where they appear in search results.
Of course, a search algorithm reads a website very differently to humans. A lot of our written communication relies on turns of phrase, associations and even psychological tricks which an algorithm simply doesn't understand. So whilst you may have wonderful sales copy which could convince almost any human to buy your product, if Google doesn't understand it, few people will find your website to read it.
Understanding how Google reads things means you can develop the copy on your website to get a balance between optimising for customers, and optimising for search.
There is no right or wrong way; some businesses focus entirely on search optimisation, others focus on their human readers and market themselves in other ways, it all depends on your business and how you want to promote it.
Keywords and keyphrases for websites
One of the biggest parts of search engine optimisation is keywords and keyphrases, which describe your products, however, they are not words you want to describe your business as, they are words other people searching for your business might use, AND things that Google will understand.
As an example, we might create a web design service called the “Yaz Platinum Bundle”; it reinforces our brand and suggests quality and convenience, but if you were searching for a web designer on Google would you type “Yaz Platinum Bundle”, or something like “quality web design”?
The second problem here is Google understanding things; the “Yaz Platinum Bundle” to Google is Yaz, with a bundle of platinum, algorithms are very literal.
The best keyphrases to build into your site copy are the ones other people are most likely to type into Google to find you: “web design Leeds”, “web design packages”, or “business websites” are all nice, simple, and popular terms people might use to find our services, and they're very literal ones which Google understands and can link together.
How we can help
Many of our clients prefer to write their own sites but we can offer advice and copywriting services to help search optimise your web pages, or provide content for a blog, which is a great place to keep adding keywords and keyphrases in regular updates which are all things that Google really loves.
Speak to us anytime if you'd like to learn more about search engine optimisation, or to discuss any kind of ongoing web development for your business website.