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Brand Audit: SEO

Posted on February 22, 2017 by Elsa under Business, Social Media and Blogging, Websites and SEO

We’re back with the sixth part of our brand audit series! Once you have audited your site’s content and functionality, the next step is to review your search engine optimisation. In this part, our aim is to edit, check and clean up any SEO that you have done in the past so that it is working for your business today. 

As we talked about off-site SEO the other week (what you and others do away from your site to boost your optimisation) this post is going to focus on tidying up your on-site SEO. 

 

First, we are going to talk about the on-site SEO within your website. 

 

BROWSER TITLES

Browser titles are a major factor in helping the search engines understand what your web page is about, plus they are the first impression many visitors receive of your page. Your browser titles are displayed in three main areas: 

  • Search engine results page. Your browser title determines your display title on the search engine results page and is the first experience a visitor will have of your site. 
  • Web browser tabs. Your browser title is also displayed at the top of your web browser in the tab. Therefore, it’s important to have unique and easily recognisable titles with the important keywords near the front. 
  • Social media networks. Certain external websites, such as social networks, will display your browser title when you share that page. 

So what makes a good browser title?

  • Keep an eye on your browser title length. A good rule of thumb is to keep your browser titles under 60 characters long. If your titles are too long then the search engines may cut it off and add an ellipsis (…), and therefore might not display important keywords. P.S. You’ll get a handy character count when you’re entering your browser title on theimagefile. 
  • Don’t go wild with keywords. Google doesn’t technically penalise you for long browser titles, however, they do not like titles that are stuffed with keywords. 
  • Put important keywords first. Generally, keywords closer to the beginning of your browser title have more impact on the search engines. 
  • Write for your clients not just for Google. While browser titles are important to the search engines, remember that you are trying to attract potential clients and therefore the titles should be written for them first and foremost. The browser title is the visitor’s first interaction with your brand, so the message should be as positive and accurate as possible. 

To edit a browser title log in to your account on theimagefile > My Website > Your Site Name > Pages > Edit Web Pages > Select The Page You Wish To Edit > Browser Title.

 

KEYWORDS

Although keywords aren’t used by Google, other search engines do still take them into account so they are an important part of search engine optimisation. You need good keywords in order to be found by potential clients. I would recommend creating a list. Start by thinking of between 3-5 keywords that you think people would search for when looking for a business like yours. Do these match the keywords you are using throughout your content, browser titles and in your meta description and meta tags? If not, change them. 

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Secondly, we’re going to take a look at your blog search engine optimisation. 

 

HIGH-QUALITY CONTENT

We’ve spoken about high-quality content in the past, but let’s just recap. The main priority of a search engine is to send users to sites that provide useful, high-quality and accurate information. So make sure that all the content on your blog (and website) is purposeful and aim to enrich the visitor. 

 

BLOG POST MUST-HAVES

Within each blog post you should try to have the following: 

  • Links to relevant past posts. Links encourage readers to engage with past content which tells the search engines that it is still relevant and useful to users. 
  • Posts should be at least 300 words long. Posts that are less than 300 words long will be interpreted by search engines as not having enough useful information, and therefore won’t warrant a high ranking. 
  • Eye-catching title. Try to use keyword-rich titles for your posts to increase reader engagement. 

 

CATEGORIES AND TAGS

If you haven’t already, now is the time to establish a clear category outline for organising your blog posts. By setting up a clear category hierarchy visitors can see how your blog posts relate to one another as well as quickly find the information they’re looking for. 

Interested in more information about categories and tags? Check out this blog post.

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GOOGLE ANALYTICS

If you haven’t already got Google analytics set up for your website and blog now is a great time to do it. It takes about three minutes to do and will give you a tonne of useful data which you can use to your advantage later on. To set up Google Analytics just follow these steps, it couldn’t be easier! P.S. By following these steps, Google Analytics will be added to both your website and blog.