SEO Quick Wins
22nd June 2018

SEO Quick Wins For Your Website.

SEO in general isn’t a quick process in itself, it takes time to improve your websites search visibility and rankings. With that said, there are some SEO tactics which can help you be ahead of the game and can result in some fantastic results, in a short space of time. Below we have provided just some of the SEO quick wins which can really make a difference to your website.

Improve Page Speed

When it comes to visiting website, I dont think there is anything more annoying than seeing the page loading speed being slower than my broadband provider… I won’t name and shame who they are but they do Talk rubbish..

Site speed is a HUGE ranking factor, so improving it is a fantastic opportunity for your website. It’s also really easy to check how your sites page speed currently stands with Google’sPageSpeedInsightstool, which is completely free to use and all you need to do is copy and paste your website URL into the tool!

This page speed test will offer you suggestions to improve your site speed, which is awesome. Improving your site speed by even a single second is great for user experience and this is so important to your website users. By making these improvements you can also decrease the bounce rate throughout your website.

 

Optimise for Mobile

Our generation is obsessed with their mobile phones, and every year people spend more and more time on mobile devices and tablets. But with that said, there are still so many websites out which haven’t been designed to account for different screen sizes and page load times. Mobile optimisation not only takes a look at your site design, but also  the site structure, page speed, and so much more. All of this is done to make sure you’re not inadvertently turning mobile visitors away.

Now that Google are now implementing mobile-first Indexing…wait…I’ll explain exactly what that means before I go any further.

Mobile-first indexing mean that the mobile version of your website becomes the starting point for what Google includes, when they index your website and is a benchmark for how they determine the rankings for a website.

You might think that your website mobile friendly, when in fact – it really might not be. So it’s always worth checking if your website is Mobile friendly with tools search as Google’s Mobile Friendly Test.

So in a nutshell, if your website isn’t mobile friendly or needs to be improved? Then you should get in touch with us today and we can build you a stunning website which not only looks good but is completely mobile friendly!

Submit your site to Search Console

Super easy and really quick win for SEO is Sitemap submissions. By submitting your sitemap within Google Search Console, you are essentially telling search engines ‘This is what pages my site has, please come and check it out!’.

By submitting your Sitemap to Google Search Console you are helping search engines crawl your site (which is always hand). It is also important to do this when you are setting a new website live, as it helps Google identify the new pages within the site.

But I suppose I should track back slightly, as you might be thinking ‘How do I create one of these sitemaps’ – well I’ll tell you how.

It’s really easy – trust me!

There are a range of tools available to build XML sitemaps for free. For example, if you are using WordPress (which every website seems to be running through these days..) then all you will need to do is download Yoast, which is a great plugin which allows you to simply update SEO data – we will leave that for another day..

Once you login to your WordPress site and access Yoast, all you will need to do is click General > XML Sitemap > See the XML Sitemap.

Then all you do is get the link and simply submit in within your Google Search Console account and add in the website, then submit the sitemap. This allows the search engines to crawl your pages.

Re-Claim Unlinked Brand Mentions

Yes, getting online PR coverage for your brand is quality! It’s a great to increase your brand awareness and can result in more branded searches for your business – which is sweet right? Well, it could be better… the coverage could include a link to your website!

One of the quickest SEO wins (which is frequently overlooked) is reclaiming unlinked brand mentions. It’s super easy to do – trust me! All you need to do is to search your brand name within Search Engines, and locate the online publications which mention your business – but don’t have a link in. You can also you some great tools such as Buzzsumo and Meltwater to track your coverage.

Then all you need to do is slide into their DM’s and reach out to the publication, to see if they are willing to include a link within their article – and most of the time the journalists will be so kind to include a link. This is a great way to utilise the existing content and build up your backlink profile.

Backlinks are STILL extremely important for your brands search visibility and organic keyword positioning. So when you are getting all of this great coverage it’s always worth asking that publication if they are willing to include a link your website.

Check you haven’t been penalised

Google Algorithm penalties can be significantly damaging for your website and these can occur when Google updates their Algorithm (so make sure you keep an eye out – we always do!).

Your website will be penalised if it doesn’t comply with the most recent update. This penalty/manual action can affect the site by decreasing the traffic to the site, see a drop in organic rankings and a drop in SEO visibility too.

One way you can check if you have your site has received a manual action is to use Google Search Console.

You may have noticed that I have mentioned Google Search Console quite a lot in this post,  but hey – it’s a really useful SEO tool to use and I would highly recommend using.

Anyway, back to the point – you can check for manual actions within Search Console under > Search Traffic > Manual Actions. This where you will find out if you have received a manual action (fingers crossed you haven’t). If you have received this manual action it is important that you lift the penalty.

This can help increase rankings, traffic and search visibility dramatically.

Crawl your website on a regular basis

Crawling your website on a regular basis is a quick way to check if your website is running to it’s utmost potential from an SEO perspective. One of the best tools out there which crawls websites immediately is Screaming Frog. I use this on a daily basis to make sure my clients sites to make sure everything is technically sound!

There is so much data that you can obtain just from using Screaming Frog and similar tools. For example, you can check any site to see if they are;

  • Missing & duplicate page titles & meta descriptions
  • Missing & duplicate H1 & H2 Tags
  • Any 404 errors
  • Duplicate Pages
  • MIssing ALT tags on images

By identifying these errors, you can then begin to create a SEO plan of action and resolve any issues which you may have identified.

Obviously, you may not have the capacity to use this tool or resolve these issues, which is why Big Cat can help! We offer the use of this tool when we manage your SEO presence and carry out technical SEO audits for your website. So if you like the sound of the functionality of this tool? Then please feel free to get in touch with us today and we can help improve your brands search visibility.

And finally…add clear Call to Actions

One of the main aims for any website surely is to generate enquiries and increase the total number of conversions? But you can’t expect conversions to increase if you don’t have a clear ‘Call to Action’ (CTA). Put yourself in the shoes of your website user – when you land on your website, you want to be immediately be able to enquire easily – right? Yes you do is the answer!

By adding in an effective call to action button/banner/form to a specific landing page will improve the overall user experience on the site and effectively persuade visitors on your website to take the required action.

So, just by making small little tweaks to your existing CTA or creating new ones, can help not only increase conversions, but can also reduce the bounce rate on the site too!

So there we have it, those were some SEO quick wins which can help you and your brand. You might be able to implement some of these quick wins yourself, but some of the suggestions which we have provided will need expert advice – which is where Big Cat Agency can help!If you need some digital marketing support, then please get in touch with us today to see how we can help you and your business.

Sign up for our latest insights, ideas and inspiration