Revealing the magic of SEO
22 June 2020
An intuitive user experience and clear navigation are the best ways to ensure your prized content is read by visitors to your website… but how do you get visitors there in the first place? A Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategy is critical to the success of any brand’s online presence. Do it right and you’ll be at the head of the class, but do it wrong – or ignore it – and the results will be… well, that’s the problem: there won’t be any results.
SEO is all about driving your appearance on a search results page. Getting ranked on the coveted first page is increasingly competitive. SEO can be intricate, but by no means is it a dark art – it relies on doing the right things consistently and keeping search engines happy.
The goal of SEO is to provide search engines with a clear picture of what your website is about by demonstrating its popularity, relevance and usefulness. The more accessible your website is to Google, the better your content will rank.
How to conjure the right results
There are four key aspects to successful SEO, which are recognised as an ethical approach to web behaviour, and these are:
- SEO alignment with your content strategy – you must identify the right keywords, and it’s smart to know what keywords are helping your competitors’ rankings.
- HTML coding – you must ensure that titles, meta tags and microdata markups (Schema) are prevalent throughout your site.
- Website architecture – your website will be rewarded for being mobile-friendly and for having strong architecture, including a smart sitemap, fast loading-speed, safe connectivity, etc.
- Ongoing optimisation – you must embrace SEO as a standard operating procedure, one that permeates not just your evergreen and dynamic web content, but your blogs and social media posts as well.
There is no magic SEO formula and it does require ongoing management, but if you stay invested, the search engines will reward you.
Getting the formula right
As part of our annual Living Ratings research reports into brand and digital intelligence, we regularly review how SEO impacts a brand’s search rankings. For 16 years, we’ve been helping our financial, professional services and technology clients develop effective SEO strategies. Like a good doctor visit, we provide the insightful diagnosis, the required medicine, and most importantly, the instructions for leading a healthy lifestyle – in which your website stays in tiptop condition and is in the best shape possible to achieve and maintain the Google page rankings you need.
If you’d like to discuss how to optimise your website for improved search results as part of an enhanced user experience, please reach out to: Greg Hobden in London, Duncan Shaw in New York, or Gigi Yung in Hong Kong and we’ll give you a call.
Next week’s quick read!
Your digital brand is not about technology, it’s about making your online presence knowable, accessible… human. Next week, we’ll talk about how to surface the human side of your brand – and why that will benefit your ‘personal’ relationship with your clients.
Hannah Gilmore, Brand Engagement Director