As an SEO agency we get asked for a lot of tips and suggestions for businesses of all shapes and sizes that want to rank higher up on Google. For some its about ranking in their village or town, for others its about being number 1 nationally! We are always happy to look at a website and offer some advice but one of the things that is super common is the point about being relevant. So here is a very very important concept that every business with a website can take away and action!
What is Relevancy?
Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a technical read, it’s very simple. Relevancy is just what it sounds like. It is about your website being relevant to the products or services you offer. Sound obvious right? Well yes, it does but it’s amazing how many websites make almost no effort to adhere to this concept.
Choosing What to Be Relevant To!
First of all, in order to be relevant you need to isolate all the terms people might search for to find you. This is not a case of simply jotting down all the things you think are right. For example, a drainage company might talk about “jetting drains” but would a customer use that term? No, they would say “drain unblocking”. It is the same for most businesses, there are ways you describe your business and services and there are the actual ways most people do. There are lots of tools to help you find out the popular terms, you can even use the free Google Ad Words tool. After lots of brainstorming and using the software you will have a list of things people type in and how often they do so. You then choose the popular ones and assign one or more to each page on your website.
What Does Google Want?
Basically, Google is looking for the most relevant page on the internet for any given search term. So, whether its “why can’t I lose weight and eat lots of food” or “Business coaches in Sussex” Google wants to give the user the most useful page. So, with that in mind your job is to make each page you have the most relevant for the search terms you think best fit.
What Do People Do Wrong?
Lots!
- One of the biggest problems we see if not even mentioning the main terms on home pages and other internal pages. It’s like people get so caught up in branding and mission statements etc they forget to actually let Google know what they do!
- Another big issue is when people have loads of services on a single page. Each one has about 10 words next to it. That…is not the most relevant page on the internet by a long way. Imagine if you were a commercial fit out company and you had 10 different main services from mezzanine floors to partitions. If you had them all as a list on one page Google is not going to rank you top for “mezzanine floors Sussex” because 10 words is not enough, it will pick the competitor that has a brilliant page explaining all about the options, specs, materials, case studies and more.
- Choosing the wrong terms is also a big issue. Businesses can often be very blinkered and insist on using their own terminology or trade terms. They then mention them and nothing anyone else uses so they might be relevant to some niche terms no one uses but they are certainly not going to be considered relevant to the popular terms customers are going to use.
- Content! Most websites we look at don’t have enough content. We see pages that look lovely but only have 100 words on there. The client then says “why don’t I rank top for what I do?”…you guessed it, because 100 words is not going to be the most relevant page on the internet for what they do.
How to Implement This
It really is simple, and you can do it yourselves, whether you have an in-house marketing person or you do it all on your own, its easy! Hit YouTube and look at how to do keyword research using Googles free tool. Start inputting all the variations of your services or products. If you sell wellies then start adding the word wellies and different colours, types, and sizes. Once you know what the term are jump into he back end of your site or speak to your designer and start writing more content, make sure there are nice titles that use the terms, add useful info, sizes, specs, tolerances, customer options, applications…everything you can TO MAKE IT RELEVENT.
That’s it! It doesn’t mean you will rank number 1 tomorrow, because SEO is a lot more longer term than that but it might just get you into a better position than before and it might just get you ahead of that competitor that always seems to out rank you!