How do I improve my website’s SEO?

This article will help you understand the basics of Search Engine Optimisation and how you can apply it to your website.

Now that you’ve created your website, you’ll want people to be able to find it.

By far the most common way that people find new websites is through search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. Of course, the internet is an incredibly busy place, so you need a way of ensuring that your website stands out from the crowd.

To do this, you’ll need to format your site in a way that will help search engines identify exactly what it is you do and feature your website as high up as possible in its results.

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO for short, refers to the process of enhancing your website so that it’s more likely to be discovered by people when they use search engines like Google or Bing. This can be done by including relevant keywords that people might look for throughout your website, producing a steady stream of high-quality content, removing any large and unnecessary files and having other websites to include links to your site.

Search engines work by ‘crawling’ websites; reading their content and data and pulling them into an index. When someone uses a search engine, the engine takes the keywords suggested by the user, compares them to the index and then offers the user the most relevant websites.

If you have Version 9 of our Website Builder, you can follow the steps below to improve your overall SEO ranking. If you’re not sure which version you have, you can find out by reading this article.

Step 1 of 6

Start by logging in to your Website Builder package.

Step 2 of 6

From there, click Website Builder in the top-left corner and select Dashboard from the list of options.

Step 3 of 6

On the next page, select Marketing in the toolbar and then choose SEO from the drop-down menu.

Step 4 of 6

If you haven’t set up SEO before, click Start and then follow the on-screen instructions.

Step 5 of 6

During this process, you will find the best keywords for your services and create a metatitle and description for your website, amongst other things.

Once complete, you will be prompted to Publish your website so that your changes will be made live. You can choose to publish your site later though.

Step 6 of 6

When you return to the SEO page, you can change your details further and track your metrics.

 

Here are a few important starting points:

Meta Title

Your website’s meta title should summarise your website and connect to your content and services. For example, if you offer fitness services in London, you could use the title ‘London Bootcamps – Workouts for all fitness levels’.

Try to keep your meta title no more than 55 characters long and avoid repeating keywords within it, otherwise your site will be penalised by search engines. You should also try to make it as compelling as you can, so that visitors feel encouraged to visit your website.

Meta Title

For more details on how to change your meta title, please read the following article: How do I change the website title in Website Builder?

Meta Description

Much like with your meta title, your website’s meta description should be a short statement that summarises the content of each page and inspires curiosity for visitors.

For example, you could have the following description for your Fitness and Bootcamps’ Home page: ‘Lose weight and stay in shape with our selection of London-based bootcamp and fitness classes.’

As you can see, this description includes popular keywords such as ‘fitness’, ‘bootcamp’, ‘lose weight’ as well as your location. Avoid stuffing too many keywords into your meta description though, otherwise you’ll be penalised by search engines.

Each page of your site should feature a meta description, which should be around 150-154 characters long.

Keywords

Part of what search engines look for when indexing sites is the number, and type, of keywords found on the site. Essentially, these should be the main words or phrases that customers will be entering into search engines.

Keywords can be longer phrases or just one or two specific words – the most effective method is a mixture of the two. For example, a window glazier would include the word “Window” on their website. However, people searching for the term “Windows” would receive results for new computers, software and mobile phones.

So, alongside the word “Windows”, you could also include “double glazing”, “glass repair” and “patio doors” – this will mean that when people are searching for someone to fix their windows, they are far more likely to visit your site.

You could also include your location if your business relies on attracting local customers, so feel free to list your county and/or city.

For more details on how to change your keywords, please read the following article: How do I add keywords to my Website Builder site?

Alt Tags

Alt tags are alternative descriptions for images that make it easier for search engines to find your website and categorise it. These should describe the appearance or function of your image in a way that fits the context of your page.

For example, if you offer a window fixture service and you have an image of a window on your site, a great alt tag could be ‘High-quality window fitting services’. Essentially, the more descriptive your alt tag, the better. However, try to keep it relatively short (i.e. within 125 characters).

For more details on how to add alt tags, please read the following article: How do I add Alt Tags to my website’s images?