Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of attracting specific types of traffic to a website or page, from a search engine’s results page. SEO includes content creation and optimization, obtaining backlinks, optimising for voice search, and keywords. It also includes more technical aspects such as improving your page speed, image load, and site architecture, so search engines can more easily crawl your site. SEO is a fundamental part of copywriting, and an essential skill you MUST master, if you want to sell more, or gain more clients. From website meta descriptions to optimising your content so it ranks higher and gets you found, you should be constantly learning about ways to enhance your copy for the search engines, so they will score you highly.
There are some tools you can use that will help you find the most relevant keywords for your niche. Google Keyword Planner and Google Trends are just two of the tools you can use to track keywords but remember don't make the mistake of plumping for a more general term that appears to rank higher, because in the long run using more targeted keywords will serve you better.
What do I mean?
Well, for example, if you Google the most searched keyword, the term "Real Estate" is currently ranking at the top. Now if you have a Real Estate business, you might think, great, so I'll use the highest scoring keyword and that way my site, or my content will score highly too. But wait, imagine how many other people are using that keyword? Hundreds of thousands of people, with billions of contents all using that term mean it's going to be incredibly hard for your page to get found.
So, what should you do instead?
You should be specific. Look for keywords that have a good ranking that more specifically describe what you do. Is your real estate business in California? Do you specialise in condos, or in family homes How about "Real Estate California condos?". Or "Family Real Estate Cali’? Make sure the phrases or words you are picking are searched for and do rank highly, but they don't have to be at the very top. And make them as specific as possible, as this way, you'll be able to stand out, and get found easier.
Think about it. If customers are looking for a Real Estate property dealing in condos in California, that Real Estate company in Ohio isn't going to be on their radar if you've used the right, targeted keywords. Otherwise, if you use a more general term, hundreds of thousands of other sites all using that term are going to bury you.
People are going to have to wade through pages of search results to find you, and the chances of them doing that are very small. Market research has proven most people typically only look at the first four pages of search results, and then only if they can't find what they need.
Many are only looking at the first page. So, you need to optimise your SEO to make sure that when people use those specific terms to search for what they want, your site appears right at the top.
The three most important things you should aim to do if you want to improve your search engine ranking should be:
- Make sure your site is easy to access and crawl,
- Have high quality content that includes relevant keywords,
- Get as many backlinks from high authority sites as you can.
Remember, the aim of SEO is to boost a website’s position in organic search. Organic search differs from paid search results, as with organic search you CANNOT spend money to rank well. Paid results typically appear first at the top of Google, but the downside is, people can see they are paid for ads as the word Ad will appear in front of the link to the website. Organic results are far more trusted – and one of the best things about scoring highly in organic search is, it doesn’t have to cost you anything!