SEO

SEO basics for small business owners.

How to start SEO?

Think about SEO before you start planning a new website. The very first bricks of a new website should be laid thinking about optimisation.
SEO is not just about 'setting up' your website well.
SEO goes hand in hand with web design and web development.
It could be quite a long process but if you do it right, you will be 'rewarded' with a better position.

Note: Everything we write on our website about SEO is not for professional web gurus. Our aim is to guide small businesses. We help to achieve good search positions on a long term basis. All information and technical details are easily understandable and reasonably limited.

A good SEO means creating value and engaging your website visitors.

Are there accurate rules for SEO?
The answer is: Yes - and NO.

Why?

Because Google doesn’t tell us exactly how search prioritisation and crawlers work - just tells advice how to think and what to pursue.

Of course, Google writes a lot of technical advice, 'best practices' that should be followed - and, many things that we have to avoid.

The good news is that it’s not magic.

Google's goal is to give the most valuable and relevant result to people because this is the clue to keep them using Google services. If people think the search result isn't what they are looking for, they would choose a different search engine.

As such, your website has to provide relevant, interesting and stunningly useful solution to a particular problem or question what people search for. And should be fast, secure and easy-to-read.

- Quotes -
Let's see what Google itself says about SEO:

It's all about providing value, visitor engagement and technical perfection.

Why do we write about Google when there are other search engines too? Because approx. 92% of people use Google. See a more detailed statistics about search engine market shares.

Basic SEO principles
what your website have to comply with to achieve a better result.

Some of them are easily achievable for a non-professional too, others need either time and effort or professional help.

Quality content

It sounds obvious: A website has to contain useful content what helps potential clients or visitors to get that information what they are looking for. However, a lot of small businesses fail at this point. Although they are good at what they do, online communication is a different ballgame.

Good structure

Everybody who visits your website needs a clear view about the structure of the content. Always think as if you were a visitor of your own website: Can you find easily what you are looking for? How many clicks do you need to reach important pages? A good structure helps your visitors and helps search engines too.

Security

Your website should work using 'https' (so-called SSL certificate) when a small appears before your domain name. It shows to 'crawlers' that communication between the client's computer and the website is using a secure 'channel'. Web hosting companies offer free SSL quite often.

Mobile friendliness

More than 52% of website visitors use mobile devices, so having a mobile friendly website is crucial. Bear in mind: This is not a black-and-white issue. A website which is 'responsive' doesn't necessarily mean that it's 'mobile friendly'. Font size, tap targets, wording, speed, content structure, etc. count too.

Speed

The faster the better. It depends on the coding, image optimisation, file minification, caching, HTTP requests, database structure, web server issues, etc. - loads of buzzwords. Advice: Make sure your website designer really knows the ropes. If a new website isn't built on the right foundations, it could be painful later on.

Authority

"Authority of a website describes its relevance for a specific subject area or industry." (Wikipedia) It's based on several factors: Domain (website) age, popularity, size, quality. This isn't something you could 'manipulate' like eg. website speed. The way to improve your authority level is becoming a prominent player in your industry.

Technical elements

Crawlers are developed to analyse like humans - but they are NOT humans yet... So, we need to help them to see our content. Proper usage of page title, H1, H2, H3, tags is vital, according to content hierarchy. Write unique meta descriptions. Always use image ALT descriptions.

Dwelling time

People spend more time on a website when they have a great user experience. Search engines are able to see how much time a visitor spends on your website. This is a signal how useful your content is. Advice: Always think what your potential visitors are looking for - and give it to them.

Links & Social signals

You need to 'lead' your visitors using so-called 'internal' and 'cross' links, as well as 'inbound' and 'outbound' links. Internal links point from one page to another on your website. Cross links point to another domain name. Connect your website to your social media pages because social media signals improve your scores.

Are you getting confused? Is SEO too complex?

No doubt, SEO is a huge topic. What makes it even more confusing for someone who is not familiar with it, is the huge number of available advice, methods, websites, articles, etc.

Read our SEO checklist, try out our text readability checker or

Get professional advice

You should know the basic principles of SEO because it will help you to make a good decision and be successful.

SEO