3-steps-seoSearch Engine Optimisation (SEO) can be complicated: it’s true that there are many factors that go into making a webpage rank well (or badly), from disavow files, canonical links, 301 redirects, secure connections and many more.

But, there are also many simple and straightforward things you can do to make your site rank better starting with these three key points.

1. Meta Titles

It’s amazing how many sites we look at where this key ranking factor has been overlooked. Meta titles are the first thing that anybody sees in a search engine result page and can be a major reason why a customer chooses to click on your site over another. Meta titles can be easily edited within most content management systems and should be one of your first steps when optimising a site.
When it comes to meta titles, the rules here are simple:

  1. Describe what’s on the page in under 60 characters. We try and keep this under 55 where possible to ensure that the full title is picked up
  2. Use the most important keywords towards the beginning of the title
  3. Ensure that the keywords and title match up with information that is on your page
  4. Never use keywords that don’t appear on the page
  5. Ensure each page title is unique and don’t duplicate them anywhere on the site

2. Meta Descriptions

It’s widely reported that meta descriptions are not a ranking factor. However, the fact that Google still highlights the keywords in descriptions suggests to us that they are still looked at and are still important. In fact, we have made huge gains on websites simply by optimising meta descriptions.

Regardless of your opinion whether they are a ranking factor, your meta descriptions are a huge influencer of whether a user clicks through to your site or not. Along with the meta title, they are the first interaction that the user has with your company and you have just a few seconds to tell them what you do and influence them to click your link, not a competitor’s.

The rules here are also simple:

  1. Keep your descriptions to under 155 characters
  2. Make them interesting, engaging and use keywords where possible
  3. Tell the user in more detail what they will find on your page
  4. Never put words in that don’t appear on the page and make them relevant to what is on the page
  5. Ensure each page description is unique and don’t duplicate descriptions through the site

3. H1 Tags

These tags should be used around the main title of the page and are a key ranking factor. This is an area that’s often missed and we see many sites that either don’t have H1 tags implemented or in more bizarre circumstances, sitting around the logo or other strange places. The implementation rules, once again, are straightforward:

  1. Ensure there is only 1 H1 on the page. For any other subheadings, use H2 or H3.
  2. Ensure the H1 introduces the key content on the page and use keywords where possible

Finally, the page meta title and H1 can work very closely together and matching these two up will give strong ranking signals to Google.

An Example

This is how the meta title and description look for this page:-

 

Next Steps

Audit your site, check out all your titles, descriptions and H1’s to ensure they are working as hard for your business as they can be. If you need any help or advice, get in touch with Podium.

 

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