If you’re a business owner looking to improve the performance of their website and make it easier to find on the search engines, there’s a great chance that you have many questions.
It’s often hard to know where to turn to find answers to even the most basic of queries that you have, especially given that it’s often the case that you’ll discover contradicting answers on the web.
To help you out, we’ve put together a list of our most commonly asked questions in the hopes that you may find this information useful and informative.
- What is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization, which is a set of practices designed to improve the appearance and positioning of web pages in organic search results. In simple terms, it means the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business in Google, Bing, and other search engines. - Does my business need SEO?
Every business should be investing in SEO. Search Engine Optimisation offers a way to increase traffic without paying for each and every click. When you run PPC (pay per click) ads, you’ll be charged for every single click that comes to your website through that ad. If you’re ignoring SEO, your competitors are enjoying all of the traffic that you could be getting. - How does SEO Work?
SEO is the process of optimising your website to rank higher on search engines, like Google and Bing. These search engines use algorithms to rank websites based upon the relevancy and authority of their pages. - Why isn’t my website ranking on Google?
If your website isn’t ranking on Google, there could be a few reasons as to why. But first, head to google and run a site: search for your website.
site:click2rank.com
If your website’s pages are listed, that means that your site is indexed. Reasons that your website isn’t ranking could be:
– Your site is new and hasn’t got sufficient authority to rank for competitive search queries.
– Your content lacks in-depth analysis or quality compared to the pages that rank for the queries you’re looking at.
If you don’t see any of your website’s pages listed, that means that it hasn’t been indexed. Reasons for this could be:
– Your website is blocking search engines from crawling it. To resolve any blocks, you should look at your site indexed.
– Your site has launched very recently and it has not been submitted to Google or linked to it from anywhere, meaning it has not been indexed.
– Your site has received a penalty for violating Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This is very unlikely unless you’ve been using cheap SEO tactics for this to happen. - How long does it take to rank on Google?
Earning a place on the first page of Google is hard work, and the answer for many SEOs is: it depends. You need to earn your way to the top of Google and deserve to be there.
Idealistically, you’d like to be ranking somewhere between six months and one year. However, it could take years to rank a new website for a term such as ‘laptops.’ - How do I create SEO friendly content?
SEO-friendly content doesn’t mean keyword-stuffed content, far from it.
The reality is that SEO needs to be an essential part of the content creation process if you want your content to perform well organically. So then, how do you create SEO-friendly content?
You start with keyword research to help you understand the terms people are searching for, determine search intent, the right format, and get your on-page SEO right.
- How long should a page of content be?
There’s no right answer to this question, yet it’s one that’s asked time and time again. Content should be long enough to cover a topic in enough depth to have the ability to rank. But that’s not too helpful, is it?
When creating content, you need to look at what already ranks. Analyse at least the top 10 pages to understand the page’s intent and the approximate length to get an indication as to how long your content needs to be.
These are some of our most frequently asked questions. If we haven’t answered your question, please don’t hesitate to contact us and we will be in touch with you shortly with an answer!