Lots of things are important for SEO. There are so many essentials that it can be hard to decide where to start first. Some areas attract more attention than others. The easiest way to figure out your approach to your site’s search engine optimisation is to know your ABCs.
A is for Architecture
No matter what you might have learned in school, A isn’t for ‘apple’, it’s for ‘architecture.’ Your architecture is a good place to begin the real work of SEO. After you’ve decided on a list of keywords, it might seem like a good idea to jump right in and start working on your content. Content isn’t the first thing the search engines encounter on your site, though, and your SEO should move in the same way.
It can help to draw up a plan of your site’s architecture and map out the links between pages. This will take some time if you’re operating a large site, but it’s worth it. It’s well known that search engine spiders give up before looking too deeply into a site. If you want most of your site to be indexed, you need to provide all of the important information at a shallow level in the architecture. Some reorganisation is often necessary.
If you’re at a loss as to how to restructure your site, your keywords might actually help. Related keywords can give you an idea of a site hierarchy. Talk to our consultants about this at SEO Consult.
B is for Bounces
SEO isn’t just about search engine traffic. It’s about positioning your site as a quality, reliable source of information. Part of this is in ensuring a quality experience for any user that lands on your pages. A smart site will want to keep the bounce rate down.
After you consider your site’s architecture, it’s time to look at how your target user group experiences your site. What things do they value? How can you best set them at ease? What will it take to make them trust you? The answers to these questions will enable you to adjust your page layout to best suit your SEO, and give you some ideas for planning content. Your keyword list will be of help here as well, as knowing which words you want to compete on will give you definite target groups for each page.
C is for Content
Finally, when the rest of your optimisation plan is in place, you can begin work on content. It’s true that content is vitally important to the ongoing health of your site. It’s also true that content will take up the most time now and in your future SEO maintenance. But without the proper things in place before you begin, all of your work on your content could have the wrong focus.
Once you’ve worked on the existing content of your pages, it’s time to plan for the future. Fresh content will contribute to your ongoing SEO maintenance, and a content plan can help. To devise that plan, go back to your ABCs to plot out the where, who and what of future content.
