Search Engine Optimization or SEO, is arguably the most important factor of you and your business getting found in google. Whether you’re just starting out, or have years of business experience, your SEO should be high on your priority list. There are few as knowledgeable on the subject as Broden Johnson, founder of Yakk – an Australian based digital marketing agency, that helps businesses scale without losing the personal touch.
Broden started Yakk cold calling from his bedroom with $50 to his name, and built it into a powerhouse that now helps hundreds of clients from all over the country, all within 3 years! Having spent hours and hours in the trenches figuring out exactly what does and doesn’t work when it comes to SEO, here are his top 8 tips to boost your SEO.
- Perform Keyword Research
Keyword research is vital so you can understand what the most used words and phrases are in your industry, this way you can target your content to be in line with these target keywords.
Some great tools to use are.
1. SemRush Magic Keyword Tool
2. Google Ads Keyword Research Tool
3. Answer the public
- Update every page’s Title, Meta Description & Heading 1 Tag.
These are your key areas to implement your primary keywords, but there are a few rules you need to follow when it comes to these areas.
1. For titles ensure these are unique on every single page, give variations of keywords on each title. You can repeat your brand name to help build brand awareness. Add your locations/service areas to help you rank better for the maps section. Ensure the title is relevant to the page it is pointing too.
2. For meta descriptions, ensure the description is relevant to the content of that page and is keyword targeted. Ensure these are unique on every page. Make sure the description is engaging and sometimes add in a Call to Action or a contact number.
3. For Heading 1’s, make sure you only have 1 per page, otherwise, you are taking away from the primary focus of what that page is about, ensure the Heading is keyword targeted, but keep it separate from the title of your page, make it more variant when it comes to the keyword targeting. Keep it at a reasonable, informative length
- Linking Structure
It is vital when you’re building your site that you maintain a good structure, this helps emphasise what your primary focus is. You never want to have a linking structure deeper than 3 clicks, else anything passing this depth will not rank and will not count toward your SEO performance. And in some cases, may even hurt you negatively.
- User experience and Conversion Experience Optimisation
Analyse your site’s design, how is the experience, are people able to find what they are looking for as quickly as possible? Do you get the message that you are trying to send across?
How is the conversion experience? Are your form submissions detailed and easy to use? Is the checkout process easy to complete?
Analyse all these things and ensure they are at a good standard, you may be winning when it comes to SEO performance, but if your site is set up to fail, then it’s just wasted traffic. Which may lead to less traffic
- Add schema and Open Graph Mark-up to your pages
These are the codes behind the code of your site, this provides more information about your site, and improves your compatibility from other touchpoints including socials. You can add schema for every type of page, from an FAQ to an Article page. This improves the sharing compatibility of your site, so when someone shares a page of your site, a custom snippet appears giving details about that specific page.
- Analyse your sites Speed Score
Test your site here FREE to see what is slowing your site down: https://gtmetrix.com/
Analyse what is going on and make some changes, you may have images that are too large or files that require optimisation.
The average load time you want to aim for is below 4.0 seconds. This will improve your session durations and you bounce rates.
- Analyse the health of your site
Your site might not be performing as well as you would expect, so it’s important to audit your site and see what is potentially causing issues with you achieving the rankings you are aiming for.
- Analyse your content
“It’s not about passing the test. It’s about having the most relevant content out there”
Your content is going to be the underlying factor of how you perform in the long run of your rankings, do some competitor research, see what is going on out there and see who is performing the best. What are they doing differently? What can you change about your content to match that? And what can you bring that is going to set you apart from your competition?
Put a content plan together, google love activity so be active with your site, start a healthy blog panel with relevant information that people are searching for. Advertise promotions that are running on your site or in-store. Overall make sure your content is the most relevant out there!
Follow Broden’s tips to ensure you boost your SEO and bring more eyeballs to your business. To learn more about Broden and Yakk Digital, click here.
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Brendan Cox (born 08/29/2000) is an American teen serial entrepreneur who currently owns and runs various businesses. Specializing in graphic design and branding, Cox is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in his age group.
