Over the next few weeks we will be offering a new feature on the Creating Media blog. Our last post on easy tips for SEO proved so popular, we thought we would start a series, so check in with us every Monday to start your week with SEO – 5 tips to be added every week until we run out of things to say! Some will be easy to implement, others a little more difficult to do so, but all should help you tick the right boxes with Google and the other search engine to help improve your rankings!
Without further ado, here are our top tips for this week:
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Keep the same domain.
We know that sometimes people can be indecisive, and want to change their domain regularly. Sometimes, it may be with the best will in the world. Maybe you have been operating under a free domain for a while, and now that you have a bit more money behind you, you want to invest in a proper grown-up domain. However, domain age does play a part in ranking, so buy that domain as early as possible and stick to your guns. If you feel like you may grow your services at some point, try to stick to a domain which doesn’t limit you too much (the same goes for a company name).Oh and while you’re there, get a proper email address too. It won’t help your Search engine ranking, but nothing says unprofessional more than a hotmail, gmail or aol email address.
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Try to get your keyword in your domain.
If you are trying to target a specific keyword (and you should be!) then try to include it in your domain, ideally as the first word. If you can’t get it in the main domain (as you are trying to preserve your domain age, see point #1) then at least include it as a subdomain or page suffix.
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Choose your extension carefully.
Unless you are planning to do business internationally, don’t choose a .com or .net extension for your domain. Localised extensions give a rankings boost in that region (so for example, .co.uk will perform better than .com in the UK) but will not appear as high outside of the region – that’s why when you are searching in the UK you don’t see so many extensions from other countries.
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Think about your page headings carefully.
Whenever you are planning or designing a website, you must always have two hats on. The first is to please visitors. The second is to please Google. Though a page title like ‘services’ seems sensible from a human perspective, it says very little to a robot, so try to be a bit more specific if you can, without alienating your human visitors. Think about what terms people would use to search for you (or even use googles Keyword tool to see what people actually do search!) and build some of your page titles around this. For example, use separate pages for each service or set of services you offer to help target the robots as well as the people.
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Vary your H1s slightly to your page titles.
A H1 is the large title you see at the top of the content area. We recommend expanding on your page title in your H1 and including a target keyword, as it is one of the main thing Google spiders see when they trawl your site.
Of course, these are just a few things to consider – stay tuned for next Monday when we will be posting some more. And if all this talk of tags, titles and regions has you baffled, we at Creating Media are always here to help – get in touch today by calling 01291 423 234 or emailing info@creatingmedia.co.uk for your website review!
