8 tips for Do It Yourself (DIY) SEO
Everyone knows search engines are important nowadays. They are, or they can be, an incredible source of new leads for your business.
However, if you are struggling to understand why your site is not appearing or not getting enough visitors, but you can’t afford the services of a specialist SEO consultant, you can have a go at doing a spot of DIY SEO!
This article updates one I posted back in January 2010, and provides 8 top tips to review for your website, to start you on your DIY SEO journey! Where I have already posted more detail on a topic I have provided a link to the post. For the other areas, I will be posting articles over the next few weeks so be sure to check back, or subscribe to my RSS feed.
SEO is not a quick hit though, so be prepared to invest some thought, time, and patience! With lashings of all three, you WILL see results over time. But be prepared to invest!
DIY SEO: Tip 1 – make sure your site is indexed in the search engines
[ new blog post 5/3/12]
For your site to appear for a search, it must first be indexed by the search engines.
Enter the search term site:www.mydomain.com (replace www.mydomain.com with your website address) into the Google and Bing search boxes. If you are seeing all the pages you expect then great, you are over the first hurdle. If not there is a problem with pages missing from the index.
DIY SEO: Tip 2 – Keyword Research
You need to target keywords and phrases that your potential customers are actually typing into the search engines to find the types of products and services that you sell. eg “interior designer in surrey”
To help you truly understand what these words and phrases are, discuss with your colleagues, your customers and use free search tools such as the Google Keyword Search tool.
DIY SEO: Tip 3 – site structure, navigation and internal links
Once you have identified the best keywords for your business, try to structure your site and group content around these main keywords. Where possible, use keywords in your page URLs, file names and navigational links.
DIY SEO: Tip 4 – the title, meta description, alt and keywords tags
The title tag is probably the most important aspect (along with the page content) of your actual website when it comes to SEO!
Always make sure each page of your site has a unique and relevant title tag. And always include your company brand name. This tag should contain the 2 or 3 keyphrases for that page, in 60-65 characters (including spaces). You can find out more on how to create a great title tag here
Although the meta description no longer directly affects rankings of your site, the description is still often used by Google as the “snippet” to display in the search returns. And by snippet, I mean the bit of text that appears under the title and link to your website when it gets returned for a search.
Add keywords to your description and use this opportunity to sell your services – you want to encourage a searcher to click on your link rather than one of your competitors.
The alt, or alternate tag, is associated with each image of your site – include a keyword into this tag if relevant but make sure you still describe the image, and don’t simply list keywords!
The keywords tag has no relevance any longer – so don’t waste your time and energy on it!
DIY SEO: Tip 5 – your page content
You’ve completed your keyword research, now you need to make sure the content on each of your pages targets two or three different keywords/phrases. Sprinkle these phrases throughout the page, but don’t repeat so often that the copy starts to read badly.
Use singular and plural versions, try adding synonyms, and even change the ordering of phrases or intersperse additional words within a phrase.
Ultimately, keywords aside, creating great content that people want to read, will go on and link to and will hopefully share through the myriad of social media sites, should be your goal and aspiration!
DIY SEO: Tip 6 – links INTO the site
One of the most important aspects! Continually strive to build links from other good websites into your site.
Consider the following tactics: getting listed in relevant industry and local directories, contributing to blogs and forums, being active in social media networking sites, online PR, submission of articles to relevant news sites etc . Always remember though, quality is more important than quantity !
DIY SEO: Tip 7 – Google Places and Local Search
Nowadays, Google’s algorithm (the way Google decides how to rank web pages) puts a great deal of emphasis on helping searchers looking for services in their local area.
To this end, you need to claim and optimise your Google Places page. It is free to do this, and can make the all important difference between appearing on page 1 for local search terms (eg Photographer in Beaconsfield) and not!
DIY SEO: Tip 8 – Video Optimisation
Videos are playing a greater and greater role when it comes to enabling folk to find your business and your content. Not only does YouTube act as its own mega search engine, but Google has video search only capability and will also return relevant video content in the main search returns.
It is therefore well worth your while to spend some time thinking about the keywords you want to target for your videos, and including these keywords into relevant fields such as the video title and description. Remember to include the word Video in the title! Also try and include a transcript of the video as this will act as great content in its own right.
So there you go – 8 tips to help DIY your own SEO! It may seem daunting but don’t be put off. If you work on it little by little, your patience will eventually pay off. And it won’t break your budget either!
One final note, don’t forget to optimise your site so that when your visitors arrive, they are more likely to buy from you! But that’s the subject for another day!
If you would like some professional help with your SEO, take a look at the SEO consultancy services that I offer, or consider attending our next workshop.
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