In this post we are going to discuss how to optimise a website for organic search. lets start with the basics though!
Organic search traffic is the primary source that inbound marketing aims to grow. This traffic is achieved when visitors come via a search engine, such as Google or Bing.
Importantly, this does not include paid search ads and organic search traffic is increased through the use of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
The better you rank for competitive keywords (keywords that convert), the more organic traffic will visit your website.
It is now widely acknowledged by the SEO community that consistently creating content optimised for search will see a steady increase in organic search traffic and improved positioning in website rankings.
What is organic search SEO?
Organic search SEO is the process of improving traffic and website rankings by using specific targeted keywords.
Organic SEO generally takes more time to execute than a PPC (Pay Per Click) campaign but when done effectively will yield better ROI in the long term. It works by focusing on content creation, link building (backlinks) and on-page optimisation.
Through effective SEO it is possible to target user intent and make consistent appearances in related searches. Organic users are the best long-term customers. There is lots of evidence to suggest that an organic visitor brings lower bounce rates, more pages visited, and are more likely to be return visitors.
I recommend that all small businesses invest in Organic SEO Services. The sooner you begin to build your online presence the sooner you will feel the benefit.
Is organic search SEO a better investment than a PPC campaign?
In my opinion, certainly! I often think of PPC as a quick fix. Maybe this is a little simplistic but I believe the long-term benefits of organic SEO services outweigh the pros of a PPC campaign.
If you have the budget which many small businesses don’t have. It would be worthwhile to use a PPC campaign while you build your organic SEO. The problem with this strategy is the potential impact your budget.
Let me try to explain. So Imagine your small business specialises in air conditioning. Ideally, you would want to attract traffic from clients searching for something like ‘air conditioning service and repair’ right?
Let’s take that keyword and analyse it using Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest (a brilliant tool for keyword research).
You can see the search volume is around 260 searches per month and the CPC (cost per click) is $75.48 which converts to £56.49 per click. It is easy to see how just a few clicks could decimate a small business marketing budget. Also, it should be noted that your £56.49 will not guarantee a conversion or anything other than a visitor to your site.
Now the good thing is that a high CPC generally means a good conversion rate but depending on the cost of the service it could still become a very expensive way to do business.
The biggest factor that any business considering a PPC or Organic Search SEO should know is what happens when you stop your Adword campaign? The traffic stops and your page disappears from the top of the rankings.
Why is an Organic SEO Service a better long-term option
Again I would like you to pretend and for argument’s sake you were to chose one of our SEO services. We complete our keyword research and select ‘air conditioning service and repair’ as an organic search keyword.
First and foremost I will design a strategy for building your online presence around that and other keywords. The strategy will focus on optimising your pages, technical SEO such as page speed, posting great regular content and conducting outreach to establish backlinks to your site.
Over-time this strategy will provide a sustainable presence for the keywords we identified and your perceived Google domain authority will grow. Best of all this presence and every click it generates will be completely free of charge.
What happens if you decide to stop working with me? All the progress and good work we did remains. The backlinks created by other websites linking to your content will still be there. Ultimately your pages continue to rank and as long as the user demand continues to exist the traffic will keep coming to your site.
Now that’s an ROI (return on investment).
The Elements of improving Organic Search SEO
How do you go about optimising your website for organic traffic? I’m not going to go into every detail but I am going to cover some of the key aspects.
Keyword Research (and a very hot SEO tip)
As I have already alluded to keyword research provides the foundations for your SEO campaign. The key is building a portfolio of keywords that are:
A. Provide enough traffic to add value to your business
B. Present a realistic opportunity for website ranking
If you are attempting to optimise your own website I suggest looking at what keywords you already rank for. This is often surprisingly overlooked.
Assuming you have a website and it is connected to Google Search Console:
- Sign in
- Click the property you want to work on
- Hit Search Traffic on the left
- Then Search analytics
- At the top of the graph, select position and scroll down
You will then be presented with a list of keywords that you already appear for in organic search results. You can then play around with the CTR (click through rate), clicks, to find keywords that already provide a source of traffic to your site.
If you then click on one of the keywords you can change the option at the top to pages. This will show you the exact page that is ranking for that keyword. With a little love, it should be quite easy to improve the ranking of that page further optimising for that keyword.
Simple, easy and free!
Nail your on-page optimisation
Authority Outbound Links
Outbound links to relevant high authority websites can help your content rank higher and increase your appearance in organic search engine results. Make sure the links are relevant to the page content and have a high authority.
Page Title
Include your targeted keyword in the title of the page, its best to get it as close to the beginning as possible. Whatever you do don’t stuff the title with multiple occurrences of your keyword. Google could penalise your website.
Multimedia
It is definitely good practice to use images, video and infographics to keep the visitor on the website as long as possible. If a visitor lands on your page and there is nothing of value it could lead to a high bounce rate. This is something that can have a negative impact on your search results.
H1 & H2 Tags
This tells Google what your page is about. Make sure to use your keyword in your H1 and at least one H2.
Website Speed
Google has told us that user experience is an important ranking factor. The speed of your website impacts user experience, so it is important to make sure that your site loads quickly. How many times have you navigated away from a page if it takes an age to load?
The Google PageSpeed test is a tool that will give you a page speed grade and also suggestions of how you can improve your website to achieve a faster load time.
Social Media Sharing
The world we live in is dominated by social media and it is time to embrace it. It is free marketing after all. Aside from using social media yourself to promote your content, you should make sure your visitors can too. It is really easy to find plugins that will provide sharing options for all of your posts, infographics etc…
Meta Description
This is the description that is displayed in the search results under your page title and URL (see below). Meta description does not have a direct impact on your search engine rankings but it is still important that you get them right. The meta description is your way to grab the attention of the individual viewing the search results. If you are using WordPress I seriously recommend using Yoast to help optimise your pages including meta descriptions.
Image ALT Attribute
Search engines still cannot view and interpret images, so you need to tell them what your image is. Use the ALT attribute to do this and make sure you include your keyword.
Content Strategy
Every website should have a blog. This allows you to add new content to your website. Search engines love websites that are regularly updated with fresh content.
Every new blog post that you publish gives you an opportunity to share it via social media and other platforms. Make sure to use your blog as a way to connect with your audience and provide genuine value to their lives.
Backlinks – Execute a link building strategy
Links to your site play a crucial role in organic search SEO.
Not all links are created equal. Links from spammy sites could get your website penalised, high-quality links can help you increase your page authority and reach the top of the organic search results.
Guest blogging is a great way to attract high-quality links. Spend your time focusing on quality links, from websites that are highly relevant to your business.
Be very sceptical of any SEO company that tells you that they can rank your website overnight as they will use techniques that will eventually result in a penalty from Google.
We hope you enjoyed this post. How did you get on optimising your website for organic search? let us know in the comments.
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