Creating an SEO website that will boost your rankings is not a single task. It’s an ongoing process.
To increase your search engine ranking you need to commit to a scientific approach, putting measures in place to track and measure performance and adapt as you grow.
In this article, we’ll work through an actionable plan that is aimed at improving SEO across your business website, building your domain authority and increasing your Google rankings.
If you haven’t already completed the keyword research process, you can follow this link to learn how to determine the best keywords for your SEO strategy. There you’ll learn a very efficient approach to determining the most effective keywords for your SEO content.
How to create an SEO website
Here we’ll show you how to build on that initial keyword research to create a high performing SEO website that generates leads and accelerates growth. To keep things clear, we’ve broken our process down into three distinct stages:
1. Technical SEO
Through Technical SEO you will put the proper foundations in place for the greatest chance of success down the line.
2. Practical SEO
Through Practical SEO you will turn your website into a functioning SEO website that will start to increase your site ranking on Google with clever on-page SEO tactics.
3. Increasing Domain Authority
By increasing the Domain Authority of your SEO site you will power up your website, reaching further and flying up the rankings.
Stage 1 –Technical SEO
A. Perform an SEO audit
To improve website SEO, begin by performing a technical SEO audit to ensure your site is in good shape before moving forward. You should…
Check for out of date information & broken links
Regularly checking for and removing any out of date information and broken links from your website is an easy SEO win. Google needs to see your website is up-to-date, fresh and streamlined, so constantly check for anything that may seem dated or broken. This might not be one of the latest SEO tricks, but it is a good habit to get into and it is an effective way to boost your site SEO.
Perform a content audit
You can also perform a content audit to keep your blog appearing clean and on-brand. This can include removing or repositioning old blog content, adding new links to old content, collating related content into longer content, or updating old content that has since grown out of date.
Make sure you have internal links connecting your pages
Proper distribution of internal links throughout your website and content will allow you to create a network of link love within your website. This is one of the best SEO techniques and allows you to share the impact of your high performing pages and content with other pages around your site. This means more of your pages will begin to rank higher in google off the back of the success of others.
B. Site Architecture
The architecture of your website is another crucial aspect of website SEO. A clear structure – both at the back end and front end of your website – will make it easy for Google to understand the value of your website and rank you in the areas where you’re aiming to get noticed. You should…
Submit your sitemap to google
Submitting your site map to Google simply makes it easier for Google bots to understand your website and its search value. Another easy SEO win!
Make sure your website is fast, user-friendly and mobile-ready!
Fast load times do have an impact on search rankings. You need to ensure your web pages load fast and connect well, with your site as a whole offering your audience a great user experience as they move through your website.
User journeys should be clear and obviously signposted. Everything should connect in an easy to understand way, and users should be able to jump from section to section with ease. The easier you make it for them, the more time they will spend on your website.
Make website usability a priority
Your clients and visitors need to be impressed by your website the first time they see it and the first time they use it. It needs to look good, show off your brand and philosophy and most importantly, be usable – The usability of your website is fundamental to its potential to rank high on search engines. It needs to be quick, easy-to-navigate, efficient, memorable, and offer clear CTA’s to guide your visitors through the buyer’s journey.
And remember, your website is the main face of your brand online. It is how your audience will see you, so it needs to be on brand and speak with a TOV and personality that represents who you are as a company.
Stage 2 – Practical SEO
With solid foundations in place across your new SEO website, you can begin to put into action a practical SEO strategy that will boost your search engine optimisation performance like never before.
A. On-Page Optimisation
By implementing on-page SEO tactics, you can increase the page rank of as many pages as you have. Each page of your website offers a unique opportunity for you to rank for certain google searches, so having more pages on your website is actually a great thing.
Optimising each page of your website around a different keyword
You should optimise every page of your website around a different keyword, making sure to cover title tags, meta descriptions and H1s. This is an easy win and will signpost to search engines the purpose and intention of each specific page on your site.
Optimise service pages for highly specific keywords
You should optimise each of your service pages for more specific keywords. These will tap into long-tail searches and query searches on Google where those people searching are looking for a very specific thing. This will bring in highly qualified leads who are near the point of purchase and boost page ranking.
Content should target search terms around specific keyword areas
When developing your content strategy and producing content, you should be clustering this content around certain topics, targeting search terms that all tap into a specific keyword area.
As your content profile builds, and you tap into more and more related content areas, your authority will grow as you make the connections between them. Think of it as a web of authority. Your understanding of a given areas feeds into your understanding of a related area. Google understands this and takes it into account.
Make every page unique
This means avoiding duplicate title tags, content tags, meta descriptions, etc. Every page needs to be unique so you don’t get penalised for duplicate content by search engines.
B. Optimise your blog for SEO
To grab the tops spots on Google for your target keywords, your brand needs to be consistently pushing out engaging, well-written and educational SEO content through your business blog.
Your blog should be broken up into clear topic areas, with content created around those topic headings focusing on specific keywords. This will reduce the chance of your related posts competing against each other on search engines.
For an in-depth look at blog SEO, here’s our full article on how to optimise your blog for SEO.
Stage 3 – Increase Domain Authority (DA)
One of your primary focuses on website SEO is to increase your domain authority in legitimate ways. Every web page and website has an authority score which indicates the strength of that webpage or website. You can see these scores directly in search results by downloading the MOZ bar extension. The higher the score (0-100), the more relevance and weight that page or site has for a specific subject area or industry.
These scores have a large impact on Google search rankings, so must play a large role in any SEO marketing strategy. Increase your DA score, increase your status as a thought leader in your area, increase the power and relevance of your website in search engines.
A. Backlink Strategy
How to acquire backlinks from authoritative websites
The most authoritative websites are those that have endless backlinks from countless websites using them as references as well as other major websites recognising their significance.
Backlinks are a major part of DA and PA. The higher the domain authority of the website that links back to your website, the more impact it will have on your website’s DA score.
When creating content, you need to think about how you can use that content to acquire backlinks from other websites that have weight within your industry, or in related industries and sectors.
- Can you collaborate with publications to create niche content for them that will include a link back to your website?
- Can you get influencers on board who will share the content to their website and link to yours?
- Can you create embeddable features like videos or infographics that will get a ton of shares and get featured within other content?
These are many avenues to explore when trying to acquire backlinks for your website. Be creative and try new approaches, each industry will be different. See what’s right for you.
For every point that your domain authority increases your website will become 8x more powerful.
This means that the right backlinks can have an exponential effect on your website SEO. Make it a priority!
B. Content Strategy
To acquire backlinks you need to be creating thought-leadership content that responds to relevant search queries within your industry.
When producing content, you need to make sure it is adding value to your field. If it isn’t, there really isn’t any point. Always ask – what are you adding to this topic that hasn’t already been said?
To add value, and give people a reason to read your content and share your content, consider developing thought-leadership pieces that use unique research and facts. This can be collected using sights like SurveyMonkey. They have made it easier than ever to bring together real insight on a given subject. Alternatively, you can approach guest influencers or collaborators to amplify your value-adding content.
C. Outreach Strategy
Finally, to maximise the effectiveness of your content, you need a clear outreach strategy. This can mean reaching out to existing contacts, nurturing personal relationships, and developing new connections with digital PR and influencers in your industry.
Outreach has never been more tied to SEO success. The right connections made at the right times will amplify your content, your website, and your brand, allowing you to tap into huge new audiences.
With the technical SEO of your website working smoothly and efficiently, an adaptive approach to practical SEO across your web pages and your content, and an increasingly effective outreach strategy aimed at acquiring backlinks through industry-leading content, you’ll soon see the effects of your SEO website.
For more information on how to implement this kind of SEO marketing strategy, get in touch to chat with one of our lovely SEO experts!