How to get a high position in Google, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo and others
Yes, a high position in search engines is important, it will bring more visitors and hopefully more money. In other words this is DIY SEO. Just follow my recommendations.
First of all, you need to think as a visitor. Imagine what somebody can write as a search term.
As an example, for this article I will be using a company name ‘Time and Co.’ selling classy mechanical watches and a fictional product TT7. I promise I won’t use tech language, nor will I be too detailed, I hope.
Anyway, I don’t have time…
It is a sentence usually used when people basically really don’t want to do something. Everything is a question of priorities. The sentence ‘I am busy’ is more relevant, but sadly lots of people are busy with mobile phones, Facebook, Twitter, … and anything else instead of working on our own website content. So let’s get busy with the good stuff here!
Decide what words are relevant
This is super important. Decide what words (keywords) are the most relevant descriptive words for you, your product or business. These words should be on your website, in titles (headings) and paragraphs.
It is possible to do good search engine optimisation for 1 word (or expression) per page or blog article. It is not good to mix the content eg ‘titanium watches’ with content of the About Us page, because the page About Us should be dedicated to content mainly about the company itself. The mentioned expression ‘titanium watches’ will be dedicated to the product pages. In other words, one topic on one page is better.
Am I sure? Yes. This is true example. I optimised my other website about audio noise for “pink noise download flac” and my site is appearing on the first position on the first page from 626 thousand results. If I search for “pink noise download” my site is on the second page from 131 million results. If I would not have different priorities, I would be first again. This is the status at 16th March 2021.
Writing copy
Stay focused on any kind of a subject. Always try to answer the questions what, how, why, where and who.
SEO can be done ‘for now’
It is quite adequate to say that. It is a long-term process and results appear sometimes after a few days, sometimes after few weeks. Absolutely standard is to expect results after 2-3 months.
Checking stats is quite important, so we can work with extra improvements, eg replacing some content with a new one which will be better written with improved links.
SEO work is dynamic
It means the best SEO practice can change. It depends on actual trends. Also keep in mind that the first SEO guy can say ‘This is not important’ while the second SEO guy will say the opposite. Nobody can guarantee position in search results. Important is understanding how the ‘things’ work.
Don’t delete old content without a redirect
Sometime you want delete a page or blog article for some reason. First what has to be done is to set up a redirect from your website address which won’t exist any longer to an existing or new website address.
Website visitors don’t want to see an error page with message ‘ERROR 404. Page not found.’
Anyway, the redirect should be SEO-friendly (code 301, pernament redirect).
Titles with important keywords
It doesn’t matter if you are publishing a page or blog article. The title is the heading and the heading is super important so it must have a keyword included!
Some people have a page ABOUT and there is a heading About Us. What is ‘about us’? It has basically no relevant meaning. The page About should have a heading ‘About Time and Co.’
If somebody will be searching in Google ‘about time and co.’, our fictional company get a much better chance to appear in a higher position. Search engines love relevant headings with a provided keyword. But the Heading is not the only key…
Content below Titles
So we know the titles are headings, and headings with relevant keyword are necessary. The content below the titles should have the keyword repeated in the content below as part of description, topic article. Don’t worry about using the keyword eg Titanium watches TT7 frequently, rather than it, it’s or they are.
Do nice typography!
When you are writing content, do it well. User friendly content is search engine friendly too!
Make paragraphs, use two columns so you can have an option to have two titles, use bold, especially for important words which includes also a keyword, use underlined text, or italic. Don’t mix all styles in one article if it is not aesthetic.
Keep in mind that bold is another very important thing for search engines. One more time: use bold with few words, together with keywords.
Do clever links
If you want to link some word or expression to another page or blog article, you have to avoid this ridiculous thing that people often do: don’t place a link on meaningless words, eg “For more information click here.”
Can you imagine how many billions of links exist with the words ‘click here’?
Improve it like this: For more information about titanium watches TT7 follow our product page.
Isn’t it better to extend the link with relevant words than using just ‘click here’? It has keywords, like product finish and model number. But we can go further with better improvement!
If you will switch to the text (code) editor, you can edit the link a little bit more. An example of a sentence in a fictional article: “Basically everything is sold out and the watches TT7 are no longer in production.” Although our fictional product is not for sale anymore, we always do SEO friendly content, so this is why we have a link to the existing product page with the words ‘watches TT7’.
The link in the text (code) editor look like this:
<p> Basically everything is sold out and the <a target=”_blank” href=”https://www.somewebsite.com/products/titanium-watches-t77” >watches TT7</a> are no longer in production.</p>
Quick explanation:
‘p’ stands for paragraph. It begins with ‘p’ and the sentence is closed with ‘/p’
‘a’ is always a link, the ‘href’ is what should be opened and it can be extended with ‘target’
target=”‘_blank” means the link will be opened in a new tab or window of the internet browser. If the link should be opened in the same window, the target is usually not used.
The best part is right now!
Feel free to use extra words into the link like this by adding TITLE:
<p> Basically everything is sold out and the <a target=”_blank” href=”https://www.somewebsite.com/products/titanium-watches-t77” title=”Titanium mechanical watches TT7 by Time and Co.” rel=”follow, index”>watches TT7 are no longer in production.</p>
What is the result of a little bit of extra fiddling?
If the visitor will put the mouse over the link with the words “watches TT7” a little text will appear near to the mouse arrow: “Titanium mechanical watches TT7 by Time and Co.” because we added the title=”Titanium mechanical watches TT7 by Time and Co.“ So visitors and search engines will get extra information with keywords.
Than we can see some ‘rel’ with index, follow. It is useful for search engines. Search engines will follow the link described above and index it. If you do link to the external web site which is not linking back to your site, and/or is not relevant to your business, you will use ‘nofollow’. Best practice is not to do too many topic articles.
Give a name to images, twice!
We want add a new image on our website, say some nice photo. No, we cannot be lazy and just upload image with name _DSC7492.jpg
First, rename the image file into (for example) tinanium-watches-t77.jpg
Second, in the media library add ALT name as ‘Titanium watches T77’
Search engines now know what it is about that image file. Yes, that’s another simple thing for SEO. People do a search for images too.
Make the snippet
This is super important too. Read about snippet in my article Quick guide: What is a google snippet?
Spread the words
Every time, when you have a chance to drop your website address somewhere, do it. You need ‘backlinks’. Again, do it wisely. Don’t share your link on Facebook like this: ‘We have a new website timeandco.com. Check it out now!’
Do it like this: ‘Our company Time and Co. has new website about our all mechanical titanium watches on https://www.timeandco.com’ Do you see the difference? Make any content by using relevant words.
Talk to your friends and if they ask you, how are you? Extend your reply from ‘Thanks, I am fine!’ to ‘Thanks, I’m fine, I just established company for making cool mechanical watches!’
Well, I mean you friends know other people and you never know who will recommend you or your business.
Take sharp photos in good light, select the most interesting images and share them everywhere possible.
Are you running a local company? Get some flyers and put them in local mailboxes.
A car is good ad space. Nice elegant gold font on a black car with the text Precision mechanical watches, www.timeandco.com can bring new clients.
Send a nice short newsletter
A newsletter sent occasionally is a good thing. You are reminding clients of your business and they will know it is not dead.
Marketing needs time
No matter if it is marketing active, or passive, it always consumes time. You don’t have to do marketing super-intensively. Manage you marketing tasks when it will suit you. Have a small but relevant ‘tasks to do’.
Post blog articles. If you have the time and mood write 2-3 articles at once for your blog. Publish just one, other articles can have a scheduled publishing time, eg after 2 or 3 weeks and then share these articles and products over social networks.
The world is not Facebook only. Get access to communities and discussion forums and drop a link there pointing to your product. Of course, avoid spamming.
What I can do for you vs. SEO specialist
Yes, I have understanding of search engine optimisation. The reason why it is not my main business subject is the time consuming administration. It is more fun for me to develop brand new websites with search engine optimisation possibilities built-in.
I can do audit, check the links, use online tools, make 1-2 reports, write down the most relevant recommendations. The work also includes attaching your domain name to Google Analytics, Google web master Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools. Managing site maps, setting up correct redirects, etc. is counted too, of course. It is short time service only and then it will be up to you how you will proceed (eg you will give correct names to images, improve text content by rewriting it or reformatting it).
What a SEO specialist can do for you? A full long-time service. An experienced SEO consultant can advise you how you are doing in the search engines for a list of your chosen target keywords. First they need to conduct some Keyword Research to show what keywords people are searching for and in what volumes. This gives you the data you need to select the keywords that are most relevant to your site. Then the consultant can provide recommendations that will help improve your website’s performance. It is best to engage a SEO consultant from the start of the project. I can recommend SEO specialist Alastair Wright (working online of course) who can assist with anything Search Marketing (SEO or PPC) related. Please feel free to get in touch with him direct.