SEO: Five Key Things to Consider

68% of online experiences begin at the search engine, with Google taking more than 90% of these enquiries, according to Stastita and Intergrowth. So, how do you reach success, when blue chip companies like eBay have dedicated SEO teams to keep them on top?

We’ve compiled five top tips to help you rank higher than competitors - take a look below.

Crawling, indexing and ranking

Crawling, indexing, and ranking are the three stages taken to determine your position on the search engine results page (SERP). They occur automatically through the search engine, but you can tailor the content to get a preferable placement. Here’s a breakdown of three key SEO steps:

1. Crawling: This is when the search engine browses your webpage to find information its users might find relevant. This includes more than just content - Google crawlers search for load times, backlinks, key terms and so much more.
2. Indexing: After crawling, Google will put your site into its index - a huge database of scanned content. This is more analytical, including things like heading tags, title tags, and textual content - but can also be affected by the metadata and the design of the site.
3. Ranking: The final stage used by Google web crawlers. Google has never said exactly how it works, but there’s over 200 deciding factors. These include context, typology, and layout.

For more on how Google ranks websites, view their guide here. Or, if you want a closer look at the ranking factors, take a look at Linkranko’s compiled collection.

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SEO key terms

At the heart of SEO is your website - and at the heart of your website is its content. SEO key terms are an integral part of getting clicks and ranking. There’s a number of tools you can take to improve your Google website ranking, including:

Ahrefs.com

This is a great website for determining key term value. Simply enter a term you’re considering, and you’ll be given a list of similar phrases that can improve your website ranking. It has all the information required to improve your indexing position.

Google Search Console

There’s nowhere better for webmasters to get their site information from than here. You can check crawling errors, improve visibility, see what works on your site… and what doesn’t.

META SEO Inspector

Simply install this add-on (available for Chrome and Firefox) and you’ll receive all the information needed to improve off-page SEO, like metadata warnings, tips to improve content, and key term rankings. View their benefits in full, right here.

Technical SEO

Good SEO practice is grounded in technical SEO - things like web page speed, internal link structure, and robots.txt. These all make it easier for both Google crawlers and your audience to see whether your page is worth visiting or not. For example, no-one wants a page that loads slowly, and Google knows this. To improve your site, consider:

Adding structured data

Google dominates its competitors, and you should lean into this. Your meta description should be around 150 characters, containing key terms for the crawlers, and information on its contents for your audience.

Improving mobile experience

A whopping 63% of Google organic search traffic comes from mobile devices, and you can improve mobile user experience with simple, effective design. This can include a drop-down menu at the top, and different mediums, like text and videos. See what your competitors are offering for inspiration, and give more.

Speeding your site up

Get rid of duplicate pages, unnecessary content, and install a proper pillar page with a structured topic cluster. You won’t regret it, and neither will your audience. 

Want to understand more about technical SEO? Download 'the complete guide to online B2B generation'.

Topic cluster

A topic cluster is your internal linking structure, which should take the audience back to a pillar page - the home of a specific subject. Topic clusters are more specific, and provide answers to the second stage of HubSpot’s ‘awareness, consideration, decision’ in the buyer’s journey. This allows:

1. More structured content
2. Better SEO positioning (leads to blog authority)
3. More in-depth content – the audience will genuinely want to visit, which is at the heart of insight marketing’s goal of useful content.
   
   
   
   
   

   URL structure

The URL structure is Google’s first port of call for information on what your site covers. It should be as simple as possible, with consideration of all five aspects of the site address:

1. Protocol (e.g. https://)
2. Subdomain (e.g. www.)
3. Domain name (e.g. google)
4. Top level domain (.com/)
5. Path (e.g. images)

Calculate all of these properly to give your audience and Google’s crawlers an immediate understanding of your content. For example, if you only sell within the United Kingdom, then it’s best to have a .co.uk top level domain.