SEO TIPS & HACKS 

Nat from Natalie Faith Web Designs is a female entrepreneur forging a path for women in web development, working from wherever she wants to be that day and living her best life. Creating websites is only a small part of the roll that Nat plays in helping small businesses to thrive. When learning about coding, websites and SEO it can sometimes be tedious and is usually delivered in a manner that leaves a blank expression on your face *snore* but luckily, we have Nat who has kindly offered to break it down for us in a relatable way with no code jargon! 

Take it away Nat..

If you're a small business owner and have a website maybe you've heard of SEO - but are unsure where you should start because it’s a little confusing? Well I'm going to give you an overview of what SEO actually means and share with you my favourite tips. 

WHAT IS SEO?

Let’s jump right in, what does SEO mean?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, which actually means “the things you can do online so search engines (like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc.) understand what your business does”.

Essentially, you rank higher in search when search engines understand that you're a real, authentic business.

So, how can you do this? Keep reading! 

5 SEO HACKS

These are my favourite SEO hacks that I share with all my clients to ensure they have a strong online presence and are found easily by their clients and customers. Make sure you add them to your to-do list so you can give your business a ice little boost online. 

1 - NAMES

Use the same name on all of your social media channels, domain and online listings. This means on Facebook, Instagram, membership sites, plus your website. For example I use “...com/nataliefaithwebdesigns” - across my social media channels + my domain name is the same too (www.nataliefaithwebdesigns.com) and on Google I have my business name registered as Natalie Faith Web Designs.

Why use the same name?

Because when they’re the same search engines link all of these names together, because they’re related information. It knows that your business is called X, so if someone searches for your business you appear at the top of search.

And the more names that are linked up the more search engines trust your business and it’s legitimacy, which increases your ranking. This is due to Google pushing down the rankings some not so legitimate websites over the past few years and favors the real, authentic websites (the one’s owned by people like me and you!).

2 - GOOGLE MY BUSINESS

This is one of the best free marketing tools and an essential for Australian businesses.

Why? Over 90% of Australians use Google as their preferred search engine (yep, read that again, over 90%!), so it makes sense to use Google’s products to attract your future clients and customers. And the best place to start is Google My Business.

On Google My Business you can add your businesses open and close times, a link to your website, show your work to clients, and allow your clients to leave you reviews!

The more you add to your listing, plus your clients add reviews, the more people clicking through to view your information and go through to your website!

Google even claims that by having a Google My Business Profile set up, it will double your organic traffic to your website (a.k.a. double the chance your target audience will find your website in search), which is a great result for your business.

3 - IMAGES

Think about how you label your images, do you leave it as IMG_22522? Or do you edit this text with relevant keywords before you upload them online? When you do this, you're adding an extra layer of keywords your business can be found by on search engines, allowing it to be easier for your clients to be able to find you online.

Next, have a look at your image alt text. Did you know that the image alt text function was developed to help those with disabilities to be able to understand what an image is showing online? It’s true!

Which means it’s super important to have relevant information in the image alt text. And by doing this you add a little extra SEO to your website too. Win, win, right?

4 - COPY

Wherever you advertise your business online - social media, your website, membership sites and online listings, make sure you use the same or similar keywords in your descriptions, summaries and pages.

Search engines read this information and pick up your keywords to understand what your business does to ensure you appear in the appropriate search results.

These keywords are the ones you used for your images, you can use your business name, and the industry or specialization your in. Think like your customers, what would they search for to find you and write with those search queries in mind.

5 - LINKS

Where you can, add links back to your website.

Add your website to every social media channel you currently use for your business. Make it easy for your clients to click through to your website, view your blog, buy a product or subscribe to your emails. 

Speaking of, you could write a blog and share your posts across your social media channels with a link back to your website for your followers to read more on the subject.

Add a link to your email signature, so new and existing clients can visit your website. Again, make it easy for them, if they have to jump through hoops (or type out your whole url into a browser) they’re not going to do it.

And finally, make sure you have links from online listings or news articles about your business so people reading these can visit your website and learn more about you. 

But please never put someone else link in place of yours (e.g. your café has been reviewed by Broadsheet, and you link the article from your socials). If you want people to see an article or review you’ve been featured in, have the article link on your website.

Let your customers come to your website first, and then click through to the article. This way they can always come back to your website and see what else you do. The more time their on your site the better!

Thanks for reading! I hope that you have a few takeaways that you can now implement yourself to boost your SEO. If you liked this article, leave Jess a comment or click this link to see more great articles for improving your online presence. Alternatively, follow @jessgeorgedigital and @nataliefaithwebdesigns on Instagram for more helpful online tips.

Natalie