How to optimise your website for page 1 Google rankings

So you have a website and you want it to reach more clients. You saw our last blog post about why you need a website and how it is beneficial for you and your small business. You realise that its beneficial that more people see your website because that gives you the opportunity to increase those benefits. You’ve heard the term SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) before, but you don’t quite know what it’s about and you’ve heard it’s got something to do with getting your website on the 1st page of Google. Well then you’ve come to the right place, welcome. We are JCKFRUT and we’re a web design company that designs websites that impact the growth of your small business. We’ve written this blog for you so you can understand what SEO is and How to optimise your website for page 1 Google rankings.

What Is SEO?

For simplicity let’s just pretend that Google is the only search engine that the world has. Now, to appear (or rank) on Google you have to complete certain enhancements (or optimisations) to your website that make your website more favourable to appear on Google which is a search engine. SEO is the process in which you or a web design company will optimise (enhance) certain parts of your website like the images you upload or the blog posts you write so that you improve the quality and quantity of web traffic you receive to your website through people searching for things on Google.

1. You need to start by choosing the right keywords

A keyword is a phrase or word that your customers use to find search results on Google. You can estimate words or phrases and anticipate what your customers will be searching for so your business pops up as a search result. These words or phrases should define what the content in your website is about so that it becomes easy for your customers to find you.

So if you want to rank well on Google, you’re going to have to pick the right keywords for your website. Your keywords must make sense according to your product, service or brand. If you’re selling shoes then choose a keyword (or phrase) like “Affordable quality shoes [you can choose to add your location as well]”. Make sure that the keyword you choose is not too popular, too broad, or too specific to the point that no one would use it to try and find a search result.

2. Create valuable content

Now that you have chosen your keyword, you can start thinking about the content (usually blog posts) that you can create relevant to your keywords. Google will use this content to find your website and make it rank on search results. The content you choose to create should provide value to your customers because that is how Google decides what website is best to show on the first page of their search results for your keyword. Remember, you are trying to get your customers to click on your website and not your competitors so you’re gonna have to give them something that they can’t find with their competitors -that’s where your value lies.
3. Help Google better understand your content
This is where the optimisation comes in. Here you are trying to make Google’s algorithm understand what it is ‘reading’. Since it’s hard for a computer to accurately know what your content is about because it does not comprehend the same way humans do, you have to leave clues (more like information) to help it understand your content. You do this by adding your keyword to important features of your content. These are:

– Your content URL e.g. www.jckfrut.co.za/howtooptimiseseo if “how to optimise SEO” was the keyword.
– The blogpost title or whatever you choose to be the content format.
– The title of the page
– The images and videos you use. Name these images or videos with your keyword(s). You should also include your keyword(s) in the alt-text section of your image so that Google knows what to expect in your content.

4. Make sure your website is meeting Google’s performance standards.
There are a few things that Google is not ready to overlook no matter how well you’ve done steps 1-3. These are mobile-usability, page loading speed, page safety and user experience. These factors are really important. They won’t just help with improving your ranking, they are a requirement from Google. For example, your customers are more likely to immediately leave (bounce) your website if it’s too slow or not optimised for mobile browsing. Google takes that as a bad sign which leads to them demoting your website. Additionally, if Google finds that you have too many pop-ups on your website, which ruins your customer’s user-experience, they will also demote your website for this reason. If you don’t want Google to demote your website because of simple things like how responsive it is or how slowly it’s running, get a good web design company/expert to help you improve these factors.

We hope the points above are simple and easy to follow, but if computers are just not for you and you would rather have someone else handle your website needs, then just contact us and let us take care of the web design for you. We are a web design company that champions small business growth and we do this through unconventional, engaging and functional web design. Give us a shout to start your journey.