SEO Tips For 2021
Integrating an SEO strategy as a small business can be daunting; however, we have put together a clear, essential list of 8 SEO tips for beginners in 2021 to approach. SEO (search engine optimisation) refers to optimising your website to rank highly in search engines. 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine, and improving your visibility by driving organic traffic will drastically grow your business and lead to sales.
As a digital marketing agency, our SEO experts are going to discuss with you multiple tips and ranking factors, presenting how you can start building your online presence in 2021.
1. Keyword Research
Keywords are a significant element to optimising any piece of content or copy used on your web pages. Using the right keywords for your industry is essential and will match your website to relevant search queries for your services. Here is a a few tips on how you can start using keywords on your website:
Understanding your target audience
When looking for relevant keywords to use, understanding your target audience and competitors is pivotal to the success of the keywords targeted. This will help you create relevant content for the search intent. Brainstorm exactly what you do, your values, services and location to form your basic list of keywords.
Using a keyword tool
You can use numerous keyword tools to help identify keywords, providing you with information on the volume of searches per month and the competitive score. Once you have chosen keywords worth dominating, organise your list into specific groups along with the data into Excel or Google Sheets. This can form your base to look back to when creating SEO driven content.
Quick round-up tip! Long-tail keywords are great to use; these are more specific terms and give more information to search engines, increasing the chances of visitors to your website. Take a look at our example below.
2. On-Page SEO
On-Page SEO refers to the optimisation of elements within your web pages. Let’s use a blog post as an example; once you have written the content using keywords as previously mentioned, we need to now optimise the post further for the website. This can be done by focusing on the following:
Title tag
Ensure that this is specific to the content being written about, has not previously been used, contains relevant keywords and is no longer than 50-60 characters.
Meta descriptions
Building on the title tag, add further information to make users want to click on your website. Make this short paragraph engaging and exciting for the reader.
Images
Images are great to boost your Google rankings. They improve user experience and help drive traffic from search queries through alt-tags. Make sure to use an alt-tag including the keyword you are looking to rank for, with a clear description of the image.
Content
As mentioned, make sure to use relevant keywords previously identified within your piece of content. Another vital element is to include internal links to other pages on your website within the writing and also outbound links to other relevant website pages that isn’t your own.
3. Create Regular, Fresh Content
Uploading fresh, regular high-quality content is crucial for SEO. By writing on relevant topics and giving users insights, Google can index your pages correctly; this also builds on authority as other websites are more likely to provide you with backlinks. Here are a few examples of the types of SEO content you could be using:
Blog posts and Articles
Using blog posts are great to build authority to your site, as others are very likely to link to people posting regular content on engaging topics. Choose subjects to speak about that are relevant to your services and location-based news articles. Long-form content can add tremendous value and has been proven successful in ranking pages highly in the SERP (search engine results page).
‘How to’ lists and Guides
How to lists and guides are incredibly useful, as this search term is entered frequently into search engines. This can provide straightforward, easy to follow information for visitors and keep people coming back to your site.
Infographics
Infographics are highly engaging, simplifying data into a clear, exciting visual. Graphics pull in a lot of attention and will often be copied into other sites resulting in a backlink. In 2021, people really see the benefits of infographics as highly digestible pieces of content that are an exciting way to communicate what could be a list of unappealing data to scroll through.
Videos
Videos are a great way to keep visitors on your website for longer, which can equally boost your rankings in Google. As videos are used less on website pages than other types of content, it can be easier to rank for as there may be less competition in your industry. Choose an engaging video that could communicate tutorials, with an attractive thumbnail and title that will pull in the views.
4. Website Design
Creating a user-friendly website is essential and will impact whether visitors remain on your website for longer. Here are a few key elements to remember when building your website:
Mobile-friendliness
A landing page designed with mobile-optimisation is vital to ensuring visitors can easily access your website on mobile devices and other technology: Google uses this as a ranking element in search engines.
Loading Speed
Your website’s page speed is one of the most significant ranking factors when it comes to your website, resulting in an increased bounce rate. Ensure each of the images used on your website is optimised at the correct size, videos are not overused, and any extra plugins are removed.
Clear Design
Make it instantly recognisable what it is your service is offering, followed by easy navigation and clear CTAs (call to actions). The composition and clarity of your website’s content must be easy for visitors to understand and with a clear direction of where they should click to next.
5. Link Building
Link building helps Google crawl your website appropriately and proves your authority. Increasing the number of high-quality links to your website will considerably boost your rankings and will drive much more traffic. The hyperlink is used for visitors to navigate easily between pages to further relevant resources and is crawled the same way by Google. The page’s content can then be indexed for relevant keywords, allowing you to rank in search results.
6. Implement Local SEO
If you have a physical location for your small business, enhancing your local SEO efforts is a highly successful way to pull in more visitors through the door. When used correctly, your business can potentially be included in the featured snippet at the top of search results, where users can easily find directions to your business. As a beginner to SEO, you firstly need to use Google My Business, a free tool for organisations to employ. Here, you can enter your business name, address, business category, phone number and website. Once verified, your business will go live and have a much better chance of being featured in the local 3-pack of results.
7. Become Active On Social Media
Although social media might not directly impact SEO, the influencing factors of building up a following across other channels can significantly increase your website traffic. With a content marketing strategy, you can build your brand recognition across platforms and share valuable content; becoming more popular in your industry and reaching a wider audience. From your social media profiles, people can then navigate to your website, where they can view your product or services.
8. Use SEO Tools To Measure The Results
When starting out with an SEO strategy, make sure to measure your results and any targets that you are reaching. You can use a few free tools to do this, such as Google Search Console, where you can find reports on your site traffic and be noted about any errors to fix issues affecting your SEO. When using this tool, you can also view the search queries entered when people have found your site, submit sitemaps, and use the URL inspection tool.
SEO Summary
No matter the size of your business, every organisation needs an effective SEO strategy to grow its online presence. We believe that these 8 SEO tips for beginners in 2021 can provide valuable insights into the key areas when optimising a website. If you are looking for further information on growing your business, take a look at our SEO specialist page here.
