SEO Perth

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It is the process of ranking higher in search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo, to increase visitors to your website. There are hundreds of digital marketing SEO factors used when considering who should rank where on the search engine results pages (SERP).

Why do you need SEO?

The answer is simple, most traffic comes from Google organic search. There are over 4.5 billion Google searches per day and 1,709 billion websites (internetlivestats.com).

From our research, people prefer to click organic (SEO) results vs paid results. When you Google “Perth SEO”, Ahrefs suggests that 97% of users click SEO results instead of paid listings. Have a look at your Google Analytics data to see where you get most of your users:

Google Analytics -> Acquisition Report

It is important to get your website to rank higher with SEO. Does your website content rank on the first page for important keywords?

What are the benefits of SEO?

The purpose of SEO is to improve your keyword rankings. Most people will click on the first few search results:

Increasing your search engine exposure will lead to more website visitors.

When comparing SEO services to other channels, it has a better long term return on investment.

1. SEO services have more consistent traffic compared to social media.
2. SEO services don’t cost you every time someone clicks.

Advertising costs have been steadily increasing due to competition, making many businesses focus on Google organic traffic to generate a consistent flow of visitors.

How do search engines work?

Search engines will send a “spider” (bot) to crawl the internet to collect information (content, title tags etc) on websites. This information is indexed in their database.

Algorithms are used to navigate their index ‘database’ to determine how to rank websites based on particular keywords. Search engines want to deliver results/content that satisfy the searcher’s query/intent.

How do you get on Google?

Getting onto Google is quite simple. Ranking for competitive keywords is not quite as easy.

If you want to get your content listed/indexed on Google, we recommend:

1. Create a website sitemap.
2. Set up a Google Search Console account.
3. Submit a sitemap.

We also recommend setting up a Google My Business account and acquiring backlinks from websites or directories.

There are hundreds of factors that search engine’s algorithms access to calculate rankings.

There are a couple of basics you need in place first:

Get a good domain name for your website

We recommend keeping an established domain name because it would have built up authority but the following does help (not required):

• Short and memorable
• No special characters (hyphens)
• Top-level Domain (TLD), e.g. com.au

We recommend having your business name in the domain name, not the keyword. Bonus if your business name has the target keyword.

Use the right website platform

The right platform for your website will depend on many factors but you need to consider SEO in your selection process.

We recommend development with WordPress because it’s open-source (support) and easy SEO setup. There are multiple WordPress SEO plug-ins available.

Another popular option is Webflow, which has SEO options built in.

Other website platforms, such as Wix, Squarespace, etc., are all great alternatives and less technical.

Make sure it’s fast loading

Multiple factors can affect website speed, such as the website platform, theme/code and hosting provider.

Use a Google PageSpeed Insights tool to identify opportunities to improve your website speed.

We recommend going with WPEngine for a WordPress website because they specialise in faster WordPress performance and load time.

Create a great user experience

Websites are created for people, NOT search engines. So don’t create pages by inserting keywords everywhere.

Search engines have identified that creating a good user experience is important and thus reward websites with positive user experiences.

Create an SEO structure

Both humans and Google’s algorithms prefer structure.

Before creating your website content make sure to sketch the page layout and map the hierarchy of pages, so it is easy for humans to navigate and Google to find and understand what the content is about.

Back in the day, Google provided pages with a ‘PageRank’ and linking pages together would pass link juice “value” from page to page.

There are many SEO techniques, and below I have outlined the process of an SEO strategy:

Keyword Research

Identifying the right keywords your customers are searching for is the foundation of SEO.

During this process, you want to collect the following data:

1. Keyword phrase you want to rank for
2. Search volume for the month
3. How difficult is it to rank for the keyword?
4. Are you ranking for this keyword?
5. The keyword intent i.e. informational, purchase, etc.

Data is collected by tools outlined later in this article.

On-Page SEO

Now you know the keywords you want to target, it is time to optimise your website for these keywords.

On-Page SEO is about making sure your page is relevant to the keyword term. For example, if you Google “Perth SEO” our page will talk about SEO in Perth.

Below we have outlined the main website SEO elements you need to optimise:

• URL Slug: inboundmarketing.com.au/seo/
• Title Tag & Headline H1: Perth SEO
• Meta Description: Looking for an SEO Company in Perth?…
• Content: Include relevant keywords

Analyse your competitors websites to assess their content, along with word count, to put together the best content to suit your website visitors needs.

Link Building

Also known as “Off-Page SEO”, link building is the process of acquiring links from other websites. These backlinks act as “votes” and show Google that your website is reputable.

There are many different ways to acquire backlinks, below are just a few:

• Content Marketing
• Guest Blogging Services
• Citations / Directories
• Broken Link Building
• Blog Comments
• Forums / Q&A
• Social Media Posts
• Press Releases Services

Above are just a few link types, but not all links are equal. Where you get the backlink from is important too.

Acquiring a link from a low-quality website isn’t as valuable as a link from a popular website.

Also, it’s essential to get backlinks from relevant websites, so if you provide SEO services, acquiring a link from Moz.com or Ahrefs.com would be beneficial.

There are two backlink types:

1. Dofollow backlinks – the most valuable and tells Google to follow the link
2. Nofollow backlinks – these are less common and tells Google to ignore the link

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is the process of analysing the website for any errors, issues and warnings that will affect your SEO.

Search engines will crawl your website and if you have any technical issues restricting it from finding, understanding or indexing your website, you could be penalised.

A detailed technical SEO review will analyse the following:

• Analytics tracking setup
• Keyword rankings
• Website speed
• Website Accessibility
• On-site optimisation
• Content Assessment
• Website Backlink profile
• Google My Business
• Mobile optimisation
• SEO Tracking

When assessing your SEO, you want to measure the following website metrics:

Traffic – When people click on a result (non-sponsored). This traffic is classified as “organic” traffic.
Keyword Rankings – Effective SEO will result in improved keyword rankings. You can measure your change in keyword position over time.
Keyword Visibility – SEO will result in multiple keywords to improve rankings, so you need to measure rankings across various keywords.
SEO Conversions – The measure of how many conversions have resulted from your SEO. A conversion can differ for each business, e.g. lead, enquiry, purchase, etc.

Note: SEO can take time to take effect and results can fluctuate. Be patient.

You will need a bunch of SEO tools to complete the job.

Below we have outlined a few tools we use:

Google Keyword Planner – Choose the right keywords to target

Google Analytics – Measure and track your SEO

Google Search Console – Monitor your performance

Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO plugin

Ahrefs – All-in-one SEO tool with key metrics such as Domain Authority etc

Moz – Search engine optimisation software

SEMrush – SEO tracking & reporting tool