Rank Your Business: The Ultimate Guide to SEO Perth

Google it.

How many times a day or a week do you hear this phrase?

Our guess is A LOT.

Since it’s inception in 1998 Google has given us the ability to find any information at the simple click of a button. It’s a revolution that has completely changed the world. Or at least the way we get information.

And, given a rate of 40,000 searches per second, it’s not going to leave anytime soon.

3.5 billion searches per day?? Unbelievable right? Actually, no. Check out how many searches are happening in real-time right here. The numbers are simply astounding.”

When it comes to basically everything, we turn to Google. This is especially true when searching for products and services.

So its not rocket science to work out if you’re a business is not appearing on Google, you’re missing out on a massive opportunity to increase your leads and super-boost your profits.

And how do you get your business on Google?

The answer is Search Engine Optimisation.

And while it may sound alien right now, don’t worry! The SEO Perth experts at Summit Web have taken some time to put together our Ultimate Guide to SEO Perth. And in it we’ve outlined everything you need to know about using Google to make massive increases to your leads, profits and bottom line.

In this comprehensive guide to SEO in Perth you’re going to learn

So, find a comfortable seat, make a cup of tea and let’s get into it….

Part 1: What is SEO?

Despite it’s overly technical reputation, defining SEO is actually fairly straightforward; SEO is a form of marketing that aims to make your business rank higher on search engine results pages (known as SERPs).

As your rankings increase, your business becomes more visible; leading to more traffic, and ultimately more conversions and revenue.

So at its core, your SEO Perth campaign is a focus on using strategic techniques to ensure that when a potential customer Googles your product or service, your business appears in front of them (as high in the SERPs as possible).

Which may leave you asking…

Part 2: How Does SEO Help Your Business?

Using SEO helps pages appear in front of thousands of potential customers multiple times a day – as you can imagine, this is an extremely powerful tool when it comes to generating revenue for your business.

Especially when taking into account that these are people specifically searching for your product or service.

To break it down further, SEO works two fold:

1. It Drives Consistent Converting Traffic

The first way SEO can super boost your profits is by driving traffic. Of the millions of pages available in one Google search, the top 5 results on a SERP will get 70% (or more) of all the traffic.

Even more important is that number 1 position taking almost 30% alone (as shown by the red ‘unbranded’ line on the chart below)

What’s more, consider that 81% of online all online shoppers start with search (and a whopping 89% of B2B customers) – the vast majority of these searchers are people ready to purchase.

That means investing in SEO provides your business with more traffic from people that convert.

But ranking is not only valuable for traffic.

As you begin to rank higher on multiple SERPs, you’ll see a second value to SEO…

2. It Increases General Brand Visibility.

Think about it, if your business keeps popping up in relevant searches your potential customers are going to notice. This is amazing for a few reasons:

a) The Nike Effect

Think sports – think Nike. Why? Because every time a sport is played, Nike is there. It’s called a cognitive association affect. And that’s exactly how visibility on Google works for your brand.

“Today, more people use search engines to find products or services than any other marketing channel.” Jami Oetting, Hubspot.

People love to research online before they engage with a site or business.

In fact 68% of people prefer to research alone online than to talk to a professional. So if your customer’s research is consistently pointing towards your business, it won’t be long until they associate you with that product or service. Which builds…

b) Trust

According to Moz, If your business routinely appears in Google searches your potential customers are 83% more likely to trust your brand. The more trust you can gain, the more profit you’ll make.

“Earn trust, earn trust, earn trust. Then you can worry about the rest.” Seth Godin, Author & Dot Com Millionaire.

Why is that?

Well search engines (like Google) spend millions of dollars every year to ensure that they’re providing their users with the optimal answers their queries. So after years of getting high quality information, people now trust that the top results are the best results.

A fact that is evident when you note that 70 – 80% of searchers are only interested in organic results (i.e. they don’t trust paid advertising – even it’s on the top of SERPs).

So by appearing in multiple relevant searches, potential customers are instinctively going to perceive your brand as a developed, professional and a trustworthy source of information.

As you can see, SEO really is an amazing marketing tool for all businesses – especially here in Perth.

The last thing you need to know about before we launch into how to create a Google dominating SEO campaign and get your business ranking is…

PART 3 – How Does Google Rank Websites?

The ranking of pages on a Google SERP is based on a number of highly selective criteria (known as ‘ranking factors’). Basically, when you enter a query, Google (using a highly intelligent A.I. algorithm) quickly runs through it’s index of stored pages and, using these ranking factors, returns with what it perceives to be the best results.

Wait! How do they know a page is ‘the best result’ ? And how can I use these ranking factors to boost my SEO Perth?

Well as I mentioned above, Google spends millions every year tweaking and changing its algorithm. And this is so it can continue to provide fast, informative and reliable search results. Unfortunately for business owners (and SEOers) they also spend a fair bit of money keeping it a secret.

Doesn’t that mean we’re kind of stuck?

Not at all!

While the exact factors used by A.I. ranking algorithms remain sealed in offices across Silicon Valley, over time (and with much testing) us SEO experts have been able to uncover a number of ways these algorithms rank pages.

Of these, the two most powerful ranking factors are:

a) Relevancy

Fairly simplistic. Relevancy is how relevant the Google algorithm feels the content on a particular page is to a search query. This page relevancy is based on a number of things we’re going to cover a little later (like: Keywords, Headings, Topics and Length).

b) Authority

The authority of a page is based on its popularity across the internet.

In Google’s eyes a page that ticks certain popularity filters (lots of visitors, quality external links, high on-page time etc) is better equipped to answer a searcher’s query than a sad, lonely page with little visits or authority.

Therefore, more popular pages rank higher.

It’s for this reason that it is extremely hard to outrank big sites with millions of visitors and links (think: News Sites, Wikipedia, Amazon etc).

And now that you understand the basics of ranking factors – you can start to develop your strategy to use them to your advantage and start leveraging SEO to super boosting your leads and profits.

PART 4: The 3 Keys to a Rock-Solid SEO Strategy

When it comes to a successful SEO marketing campaign (especially SEO in Perth) there is 3 key factors you need to focus on; On-Site Optimisation, Content and Off-Page Link Building.

Ranking Key #1: On-Site Optimisation

So you’ve just gotten your new site back from your developer. It looks great – with mountains of pictures, video, content and CTAs. In fact your certain it’ll convert every visitor you get.

There’s only one problem:

If it wasn’t build to be SEO optimised, you’re never going to get any visitors.

It’s a common dilemma we see with our clients. And that’s because as great as a site looks to you – it looks a lot different to Google.

“Search engine optimization is often about making small modifications to parts of your website. […] these changes might seem like incremental improvements, but when combined with other optimizations, they could have a noticeable impact on […] performance in organic search results.” Google, 2017.

Remember earlier when I mentioned that Google had billions of pages stored in its library?

Well it finds these billions of pages by using Artificial Intelligence sequences called ‘bots’. These bots act like little spiders that ‘crawl’ around the web looking for new sites to index and store.

The thing is, these bots don’t see pages the same way we do. In fact, they can’t see pictures or video or even colour – they only see text.

For example in the eyes of a bot this SEO Perth guide will actually look something more like this:

Because of this, your website and it’s pages need to be optimised to help these bots find and index your page correctly. Doing this increases the chances your page will be found quickly and effectively when someone searches for your product or service.

The most important elements of this technical setup are:

1. Website Navigation (Your Page Links)

Just like a normal human user, the Google bots love a site that is easy to use and navigate. That means that they can find pages quickly through links (the clickable parts that take you to other pages) and that all the pages in your site are inter-connected.

Our Tip:

Make sure you can access every page you want indexed (which should probably be all of them) through other pages on your site.

For example: Start on the home page and try to find every other page of your site by simply clicking through links.

If there is a page that you need to manually type into your top bar to find, it’s a red flag that it won’t be indexed it correctly – this will affect your ranking.

2. Dead/Broken Links

You know when you try to find a page and it loads this instead:

Sucks right? Well this is what’s called a dead or broken link. Essentially it means that there’s a link to a page that doesn’t exist. And like you, Google hates it. That’s why fixing these dead links is a major factor in getting your site correctly indexed.

Our Tip:

While clicking around your site checking your page links, make a note of any dead links.

Alternatively, use an online checker (like BrokenLinkCheck)

Simply pop your site in:

and it will shoot out a list of broken links that you (or your Perth Web Development Team) will need to fix by re-directing them to ones that are live or removing the links completely.

3 Adding A Sitemap

The last little URL/link related hack is to upload a sitemap to Google. This gives the bots a sort of blueprint to your website that makes it easier to crawl and index.

Luckily, getting a site map is pretty straightforward process. Simply visit a sitemap generator site (like xml-sitemaps) and enter your site

Hit start, wait a minute and then download your site map.

Then log onto the Google Search Console and upload it.

4. Page Speed

Page speed is the time it takes for your pages to load. And it’s very important (and not just for Google!).

A slow sight loses money.

In fact you lose roughly 21% of visitors for every second that it takes your page to load and 90% of your visitors wait only 3 seconds before deciding if they want to wait for a site to fully load.

Fast loading times are also vital to higher rankings.

Our Tip:

Head over to Pingdom and use their free speed test to see how your site is performing.

NOTE – If your focus is for SEO Perth, make sure to change the location to Sydney.

You should get a resuls page with a grade, a rating and a number of ways you can improve your speed.

Struggling with Speed?

As it often requires coding changes and back end tweaking, optimising website speed is often best left up to trained developers. If you’ve done the test and are unhappy with your results feel free to give our team of expert Perth web developers a call today.

5. Mobile Optimisation

In early 2016 the SEO world was abuzz with one trend. Mobile. The word from Google was that it was going to change everything. So much so that the imminent dawning of SEO’s Mobile Age was dubbed Mobilgeddon.

And now 2 years later, it’s safe to say that it has arrived.

And it’s really no wonder. In a review of millions of search queries Hitwise.com reported:

“60% of all Google searches worldwide are done via mobile – in fact in some areas this can be much much more”.

How does this affect your business?

When you consider that more than half of all internet access is through mobile, websites that haven’t been optimised to work quickly and smoothly on devices such as smartphones and tablets are losing out big time.

On both rankings AND general profit.

Our Tip:

To check how your site is holding up on mobile simply enter your site into Google’s free mobile friendly checker. Within seconds you’ll be able to see how your sites performing and any a list of ways to improve.

Mobile results not as awesome as you’d like?

Having a well mobile optimised site is a massive deal, and one that can make (or break) your online growth – if you want any tips, tricks or help to sharpen how you look on mobile our Web Dev team are always happy to help out.

6 Duplicate Content

You know when sites have the same tired spiel on every page? Annoying right? Well, Google hates it too. In fact, sites that duplicate their content across multiple pages are actually punished in their rankings.

Don’t fall into the ‘cut and paste’ trap!

Your website needs to have different content and copy on every single page.

And while we’re on the subject of Content, our second key to ranking success is…

Ranking Key #2: Content

While I’m sure that you’re familiar with the old saying “Content is King” in general digital marketing, what you may not know is how crucial it is to successful SEO (and SEO Perth). To say It’s paramount is an understatement.

“Content is the lynchpin that will take your business from rank 105, to ranking within the top 5.” Chris Dinham, CFO Summit Web & SEO Perth Speaker

Why is Content so important for SEO and my business?

In the wise words of leading SEO Author and Marketing CEO Lee Odden:

“Content is the reason search began in the first place”.

While it may seem to be finding ‘pages’, in reality what Google and it’s bots are really looking for is content. It’s content on webpages (be it text, sound or video) that answers queries and provides information; creating the basis for the search engines existence.

As you can see, it’s not just important – it’s necessary.

And while I’ve comprehensively gone through the ins and outs of how to create killer content for Content Marketing in Perth in a previous post, let’s re-examine the crucial points.

Content Creation Step 1: Keywords (& Keyword Research)

Keywords are what SEOers call the words or phrases that Google uses to help determine what your content is about. They are imperative to a good SEO campaign because Google uses keywords to assess and select relevant content and display it on SERPs.

For Example:

You’re writing an article for your Landscaping service. So a keyword people may search to find this article would be ‘Landscaping Perth’. But you don’t use this keyword throughout your article. No matter how informative, long and amazing, it’s never going to be found by customers searching for ‘Landscaping Perth’.

This brings up a second point:

Keywords have to be relevant enough that you’re found by your target market.

For Example:

While our article didn’t include Landscaping Perth, it did mention Galvanised Screws several times. Which means our article may appear when people search for Galvanised Screws – however, as a Landscaping company, these searchers aren’t going to convert.

The importance of Converting Keywords means adequate keyword research is essential.

This way you develop a list of Keywords that will put your content in front of converting customers.

How to Keyword Research:

Again, this is covered in my much longer article on Content Marketing in Perth. But for those in a rush, here is

Summit Web’s Quick How-To Guide to Keyword Research:

1 – Think about the words and phrases you’d type into Google to find your business.

Write them down. These are your first keywords.

For Example:

Landscaping Perth, Gardening Perth, Expert Gardeners Near Me, Cheap Lawn Mowing Service etc.

2 – Type these ideas into Google.

It’s a little hack, but often Google will give you more suggestions either in the search bar at the at the bottom of SERPs.

These are some more keywords!

For Example:

3 – Use a free Keyword suggestion service.

While most of them will only give you a limited number of searches for free, this is often enough to get you (and Your SEO Perth campiagn) off and running.

For Example:

I quickly used KeyTool to search for Keywords and it provided a tonne of suggestions for a landscaping service.

Other Free Keyword Finders include:

Google Keyword Planner (in Adwords)
Moz Keyword Finder
KWfinder.com
Wordtracker

Content Creation Step 2: Writing SEO Optimised Content

“Content Marketing is a commitment, not a campaign.” Jon Buscall, Head of Moondog Marketing

Now that you have a list of keywords, the next phase to actually write some content. While the style, length and tone of content differs greatly depending on who’s writing it and what for there are some basic SEO inclusions that all content hoping to rank should include:

1. Include Keywords:

As a rule of thumb you should aim to include your keywords on a 1-2% basis. That means if your content is say 1500 words long, it should appear around 15 times.

Note – This measurement is often referred to as Keyword Density.

Be careful!!

Don’t just pop keywords in willy-nilly and don’t over do it. Employing either of these strategies will result in unreadable content and penalties from Google.

GIF

In fact, there are 7 specific places to add keywords to really maximise their benefit. They are:

#1 – In Your Content Title.

#2 – Within the first 100 Words.

#3 – In a Sub-Heading (preferably a H1)

Having your keyword in these particular areas sends a strong signal to Google that your article is closely linked to your keyword.

But wait, there’s more!

Not only is it important to add your keywords to specific areas in your content, you also have to ensure they’re added to your content’s back end. While this may sound daunting – don’t worry, it’s a pretty easy process.

You just need to make sure your keyword is:

#4 – In Your Articles URL

A URL is what you would have to manually type in to your top search bar to find a page (for example the URL for this page is: SummitWeb.com.au/SEO)

And while you can’t change the enite name of your site, what you can easily edit is the part after the slash (ie: the /SEO) which is known as the ‘Slug‘.

Our Tip:

Make life easier for your self! We highly recommend using the Yoast SEO plugin. This small WordPress plugin makes changing your Slug a breeze.

Simply install, activate and use it to change your URL through the post page.

For example:

While you’re there, you can also quickly and easily add your keywords to your…

#5 – In The SEO title

This the title that will appear on a SERP.

Our Tip:

We recommend adding your keyword as close to the start of your SEO title as possible.

#6 – Through the Meta Description

The meta description is the little description that will appear under your title on a SERP.

Our Tip:

There’s not much space here (less than 100 words) so after adding your keyword develop a short pitch that makes your potential customers click without hesitation.

#7 – In Your Image Titles

As I mentioned earlier, Google’s bots can’t actually see images. The see text. So when they come to view an image, all they can do is read what the image is called.

That’s why you need to name your images with your keyword included.

Our Tip:

Select all your images, put them in a folder and bulk name them before you upload them. Not only will this ensure they’re keyworded, it’ll also make it easier to find images if you need them in the future.

#8 – Alt Tags

The final piece of the keyword puzzle is the Alt Tags. An Alt Tag is a small description added to an image to help people with a sight impairment. It’s also a great spot to add your keywords.

Content Creation Step 3 – How Long Should Your Content Be?

In a recent study of over 1 million results pages, Backlink.com found:

“The average Google first page result contains 1,890 words.”

And while this may seem like a lot of words, keep in mind that longer content is more likely to deliver comprehensive answers – and thus will always be favoured by Google.

While 1900 is a lot, we recomend having at least 1000 – 1500 words for everyone of your articles.

Struggling with achieving the length you want?

Check out this article about how to write a 1200 word article in 30 minutes (or less!).

Content Creation Part 4 – Other Things to Include

External Links –

An external link is something you add to your content that directs readers to other websites.

While linking to other people’s content may seem counter productive, doing so actually helps Google understand and index your content even further.

Our Tip:

By linking to things like stats and quotes, you get the Google ranking boost AND your content immediately appears well researched and more trustworthy.

Internal Link –

Linking to other pages in your site adds more links for Google’s bots to crawl, as well as making it easier for your visitors to access other relevant parts of your site.

Our Tip:

Link to pages that are relevant to your customer and what pages you want them to visit- ie: if you’re writing about SEO, link to your SEO service page or an SEO case study…

Ranking Key #3 – Off-Page Link Building

Great! The content is finished! the hard part’s over right?

Urrrgh not really.

Remember how Google uses Relevancy and Authority? Well, the content and our SEO optimisation was to build relevance. However we now have to build authority.

When it comes to authority there is really only one word to be concerned with:

Backlinks

A backlink is when a different site links to your content.

For example: every time I’ve linked to a website that wasn’t Summit Web, I’ve given a backlink (So far, I’ve given 7 backlinks).

Backlinks improve site authority because Google assumes that no sensible website (or website owner) would link to another site of poor quality.

Of course this isn’t always the case. And (in an attempt to boost rankings) plenty of people actually pay for links from dud sites. To counteract this phenomenon, Google only rewards backlinks given by websites that it trusts.

This is why link quality counts. Basically – you want to have as many backlinks from well established and respected websites as possible. Usually the more visited, referenced and popular, the better.

But how can you get these backlinks?

The Top 2 Ways to Gain Backlinks.

NOTE – First off it’s important to think of backlinks less as something you gain and more of something you earn. Which means putting the ground work in and having good, well constructed and informative content.

No matter how much you try, no link building effort will be successful without good content.

1 – Outreach:

This method involves actually reaching out to other websites and asking them to link to your content.

Believe us, we know this can be daunting. But trust in yourself and your content and you’ll find that the vast majority of website owners will be happy to link to you (maybe even for a link in return).

As an added bonus this builds relationships – which is crucial in securing backlinks and site visitors. Especially when considering SEO Perth (where everyone knows everyone).

“What’s nice about […] relationships is they turn into multiple links over time, because they know you. You can go back to those people again and again, […] saying, “Hey, I thought you might like this. Check it out.” Rand Fishkin, (former) MOZ.com CFO

2 – Guest Posting:

While it may seem counter productive, Guest Posting (creating a piece for another website) is actually a fantastic way to build your backlinks.

Why?

Given the world’s hunger for content, offering an article for free is often too good to refuse. Therefore your likely to be taken up on it, a lot. What’s more, you’re also opening the door to having an article written for your business – Bingo! Free content!

Other Ways To Build Links

Comments Sections:

A lot of websites allow you to add your site to a profile when making comments on articles. While they don’t do a huge amount for SEO, they’re easy and quick so definitely worth it.

Social Profiles:

While Google refuses to admit a direct relationship between Social Media and SEO, Social platforms and forums (like Reddit) provide an easy way to add a link to your website, and also a chance to draw in more visitors.

Online Directories:

There’s a tonne of directories online that you can add your business details to in order to gain backlinks. Again they’re not going to dramatically increase your rankings but they certainly don’t hurt.

PART 5: How to Measure SEO Results

Now that you know how to get the most out of your SEO Perth Campaign, you have to measure your results.

Key Measurements for SEO:

Your Ranking –

Obviously this is a first port of call for many businesses throughout an SEO campaign. And for good reason – it’s what many consider to be the most important KPI.

When measuring your Rankings we suggest keeping a few things in mind:

1. SEO takes time. Instead of thinking in weeks, you need to be thinking in months (even years). Instead of fixating over weekly figures, focus more on the general trend over the months.

2. Rankings fluctuate a lot. All the time. Just because you’re rankings are down one week doesn’t mean it’s time to pack it in.

3. You may get an quick boost at the start of your campaign. This is totally normal. As your website is suddenly being correctly indexed it’s gaining places above hundreds of others that aren’t. This won’t continue forever! Be ready for a period of steady rankings (or even dips) immediately after.

Of course, measuring SEO results doesn’t just come down to how high your ranking for particular keywords.

Other ways to measure your SEO success include:

Organic Traffic increases

Numbers of backlinks

Visitor Time on Website

Conversions Numbers (from your Organic Traffic)

Looking for a way to measure these results? For regular business owners. We recommend using Google Analytics. It’s free to sign up and there are a tonne of free resources available to learn how to use it to measure your SEO Perth campaign.

PART 6: Where to Next For Your SEO Perth Campaign??

Phew, what a way we’ve come. Through this guide you’ve learned:

What SEO is

How it helps your Perth business

How Google ranks pages

The 3 Keys to a Successful SEO Perth Campaign and..

How to Measure your campaign’s results

And, hopefully, a whole bunch more.

And now you’re probably wondering what next?

Well for you keen business owners, now is the time to get started. Read and re-read all the hints, hacks and info we’ve outlined here and begin crafting your SEO campaign! Trust us, it won’t happen overnight but when you see the returns it will be worth the effort!

Happy SEOing!

Help!! I have more questions!?

No problem! There is so much to know about SEO that this is really just scratching the surface of what is possible for you and your business. If you’re keen to know more feel free to give Summit Web’s SEO Perth team a buzz today. We’re always keen to help business owners like you achieve the online growth you’ve been dreaming of.