Getting found online | SEO tips to increase your website traffic

Welcome to the seventh edition of the #getonlinified newsletter! In this edition, we'll be sharing valuable insights and tips on how to optimise your website for search engines and improve your rankings. Whether you're a business owner, manager, marketer, or website owner, implementing these SEO strategies can help you drive more organic traffic and increase your online visibility. If you want to see how you're performing today, check your website performance in a few seconds with our free website grader tool!

Keyword research: The foundation of SEO

We all want to have proper knowledge about our audience before we produce our online content. Understanding which keywords resonate with our personas and which keywords rank high in search engines, is an important part of that. However, things tend to get complicated when search engines keep shifting their recommendations on what to focus on regarding keyword optimisation.

Today, Google's emphasis is on quality content, good user experience, and high page speed – fortunately, at Zooma we have Daniel Falk to help us. Take a listen to this episode of The Onlinification Pod to find out what companies should prioritise when trying to rank for important keywords. He gives plenty of tips to companies who want to make sure that they can actually get found on Google.

Keyword tools

There's a huge number of tools available to help you analyse search patterns and discover topics and trends you should be covering. To keep things short, Zooma content creator Doug Bolton recommends these tools:

KeywordsEverywhere

KeywordsEverywhere is the keyword tool that we use the most. It's available as a Chrome plugin, and when you want to do some research, you simply switch it on and start searching. 

Some of the most basic figures you need will then appear right on the results page. As you can see in the screenshot, three figures show up just below the search bar:

• Volume - The search volume of the searched-for term. This is the approximate number of searches that are made for this term every month.
• CPC - CPC stands for 'cost per click'. It's the approximate amount of money you would pay for a click if you were to run an advert focused on this search term. 
• Competition - This figure shows how difficult it is for you to rank for a particular keyword on a 0-100 scale. If the difficulty is very high, putting time and effort into ranking for the keyword may not be worthwhile - there's so much competition that your chances are very low. Ideally, your keywords will be relevant to your business, and have a high search volume and a low difficulty - but unfortunately, this isn't always the case!

This feature makes it very quick to research and compare keywords - if you're choosing between two very similar keywords for a particular topic, you can quickly compare them just by Googling.

However, there are also more sophisticated tools available. You can get access to trend data that shows how the search volume for a particular keyword is changing over time - useful if you want to get involved early with an up-and-coming trend. There's also a handy long-tail keyword finder, which shows relevant data on keywords similar to the one you searched for. For example, after searching for 'business blogging', you can use this tool to find out that 'what is business blogging', 'business blogging ideas' and 'benefits of business blogging' also have high search volumes, which helps you to plan additional content around this main topic.

KeywordsEverywhere isn't free, but it's fairly cheap. There's no subscription - instead, you buy credits, which are used up as you research. Getting the volume, CPC, competition, and trend data for one keyword costs one credit, and you always get a list of a few related keywords when you search, so a single search usually costs a few credits. You can buy 100,000 credits for 10 USD, which will probably last you a long time.

SEMrush

SEMrush is a popular all-in-one digital marketing tool that offers a wide range of features for keyword research, competitive analysis, site auditing, rank tracking, and more. It is used by many digital marketers, SEO professionals, and businesses to optimise their online presence and improve their search engine rankings. SEMrush provides insights and data that help users make informed decisions about their digital marketing strategies.

There are several reasons why SEMrush is considered a good keyword tool and widely used by many:

1. Comprehensive keyword research: SEMrush offers an extensive keyword database, allowing users to identify profitable keywords, analyse search volume and assess keyword difficulty. It also provides related keywords and long-tail keyword suggestions, helping users discover relevant keywords to target in their SEO and PPC campaigns.
2. Competitor analysis: SEMrush allows users to analyse their competitors' websites, uncover their top-performing keywords and identify gaps in their own keyword strategy. This competitive intelligence helps users understand their market landscape and gain a competitive advantage.
3. Site auditing: SEMrush's site auditing feature helps users identify and fix technical SEO issues on their website, such as broken links, duplicate content and missing meta tags. This helps improve the overall health and performance of their website in search engines.
4. Rank tracking: SEMrush allows users to track their website's rankings for target keywords in various search engines and locations over time. This helps users monitor the effectiveness of their SEO efforts and make data-driven decisions to optimise their rankings.
5. Reporting and analytics: SEMrush provides comprehensive reporting and analytics features that allow users to track their SEO progress, measure the success of their campaigns and generate professional-looking reports to share with clients or stakeholders.
6. User-friendly interface: SEMrush has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy for both beginners and experienced users to navigate and access its features. It also offers a wealth of educational resources, including tutorials, webinars, and a knowledge base, to help users learn how to make the most of the tool.

Overall, SEMrush is a powerful and versatile keyword tool that provides a wealth of data and insights to help users optimise their SEO and PPC campaigns, gain a competitive advantage, and improve their online visibility.

SEMrush offers several pricing plans that vary in cost and features.

• Pro Plan: This plan costs $119.95 per month. This plan is designed for newbies and small teams with limited budgets. It offers 40+ advanced tools and reports for keyword research, site audit, rank tracking, backlink analysis, and more.
• Guru Plan: This plan costs $229.95 per month. This plan is designed for mid-size businesses and agencies. It offers all the features of the Pro plan plus 30+ advanced tools and reports for content marketing, PPC advertising, and competitor analysis.
• Business Plan: This plan costs $449.95 per month. It is designed for large enterprises and agencies with extensive marketing needs. It offers all the features of the Guru plan plus API access, white-label reports, and custom limits.

SEMrush also offers a free plan with limited features and data.

Keyword Tool

The imaginatively-named Keyword Tool is a good alternative to KeywordsEverywhere. There's no Chrome plugin, so you need to do your research through the site instead. It's got the typical features you would expect from a tool like this – type in a keyword, and you'll get a list of long-tail keywords along with their search volume, CPC, competition, and trend data. 

The difference is that it doesn't just focus on Google. You can also find keyword information for networks like YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and e-commerce platforms like Amazon and eBay. You can also get specific data for different countries, languages, and cities, which would be useful if you're an international company with a multi-language online presence. 

It's a sophisticated and popular tool, but it's more expensive than KeywordsEverywhere. If you want access to all the same figures it offers, you'll need the Pro Plus package at 79 USD a month. If you can live without CPC and Google Ads data, the slightly cheaper Pro Basic package would do. It costs 69 USD a month. There's also a free version that's still usable for basic research as it gives you suggestions but without search volumes.

Google Keyword Planner

Plenty of keyword research tools use the figures provided by Google's Keyword Planner in their services, so why not get the figures straight from the source?

You need a Google Ads account to access the Keyword Planner, but you can easily set one up in a few minutes. You can either 'discover new keywords' or 'get search volume and forecasts when you get started.

The good thing about the 'discover new keywords' feature is that you don't need to have any existing desired keywords to get started. Instead, you can add a few terms that describe your business, and you'll get a long list of related keywords. In Zooma's case, we added the terms 'digitalisation', 'online marketing', and 'inbound', and got suggested keywords like 'inbound and outbound', 'inbound sales', and 'online content marketing'. If we were thinking about what content to prioritise, we would probably focus on terms like these to reach people interested in our services. The 'get search volume and forecasts' requires you to enter a list of existing keywords and then show you the figures for each one – which isn't so useful if you don't have any targeted keywords to start with.

It's possible to use Keyword Planner to search for popular keywords in specific countries and cities and different languages. You can sort and filter your results to find the most relevant options that will hopefully drive traffic to your site. You can also start your search with a website rather than a list of business-relevant terms - and if you start with a competitor's website, you can often get a broad list of solid keywords that you may not have thought about initially.

Another benefit of Google Keyword Planner is that you can see trends per keyword. That's useful when looking at keywords with large seasonal variations.

There are a few flaws with the keyword planner - you only get a range of figures for the search volume, such as 1K - 10K or 10K - 100K. Similarly, competition is always described as either 'high', 'medium', or 'low', not as a specific number. So choosing between two equally popular keywords can be tricky. It's also designed for use with Google Ads and not SEO, so many of the figures it focuses on aren't relevant unless you plan to run ads. However, the tool is free to use as long as you have a Google Ads account, so you get what you pay for.

Topic cluster

Topic clusters are an important aspect of SEO because they help search engines understand the context and relevance of your content and assist users in finding the information they are looking for. A topic cluster is a group of related content pieces that is organised around a core topic or theme. It typically consists of a pillar page, which is a comprehensive guide or overview of the topic, and several supporting blog posts or pages that provide more specific information on subtopics related to the main topic.

Topic clusters are an effective way to improve your SEO and attract more organic traffic to your site. By organising your content around specific topics and creating comprehensive, high-quality content that covers those topics in-depth, you can improve your search rankings and provide a better user experience for your audience.

It's a way of producing and categorising content that reflects how people typically research and consume information that they're interested in. Zooma's very own Stellan Bj?rnesj? explained this well in an episode of The Onlinification Pod:

'Google wants to function like humans function, ultimately. And when we get interested in something, we tend to want to go deeper into that subject and understand it fully, both in private and in professional life. So, if we create content that way, then we're doing something that both our target audiences want and also something that search engines are aiming to understand. And that gets you a benefit in organic search if you do it well.'

Get the truth with our website grader!

Your website is the face of your business – without a solid online presence, you'll struggle to build trust and credibility among your potential customers. Use our free website grader to assess your site's search-friendliness and take the first step towards improving it.

What is a website grader?

It is a tool that scans selected pages on your website and checks its functionality and performance. Everything that a visitor wants to experience on your website and what Google finds interesting shows high on the search results, and a website grader can tell you if you're qualified.

What does a website grader scan on the website?

It checks four main categories: Performance, SEO, Mobile and Security, which are the essential functions. Under each category below, you get a more specified explanation of what it means.

Website performance

The performance tells how well the website optimises traffic increase, improves the conversion rate, generates more leads and increases revenue.

• Page size: How heavy is your website? Does it load slowly? It's recommended to keep the uploading on the page size below 3MB.
• Page requests: How much information, pictures, videos, files, etc., do you have on the website? The more HTTP inquiries your website craves, the slower the data uploads. Combining files can help reduce the number of requests.
• Page speed: How fast is your website loading? All websites with a loading time of fewer than 5.3 seconds are fast. If your website has a higher number, visitors will leave the page before it has finished loading.
• Browser caching: Where do you store your content? Your website loads faster with your most relevant content by using local memory. 
• Minimal page redirects: Redirects mean that when you can move content to a new URL, you delete pages on the web page, change domain names, or merge websites. If you do this often, your website may load more slowly, which you should avoid.
• Image size: How heavy are your images? Uploading images can take a long time, irritating visitors as they want to see the content simultaneously. Instead, you can optimise your images for different screen sizes.
• Minified javascript: Would you happen to know if your JavaScript is short enough? JavaScript is a programming language used for web development, applications etc. The more compressed the script is, the faster the website will be.
• Minified CSS: Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a scripting language that describes the presentation style on your website like; text size, font, and colours, and it needs to be compressed to make the website run faster.

SEO factors

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a way of working and a strategy for writing and using your content on your website to make Google rank it higher on the search engine results page (SERP). Are you receiving more traffic to the website?

• Permission to index: If you want your website to appear in search results, the search engines must have your permission to store your website information in their index. If not, you do not exist on search engines.
• Meta description: Meta descriptions are the small description text in the search engine result under the web page title that explains what your page is about. Google likes descriptions, so remember to add them to your web pages.
• Content plugins: Content plugins are software that helps website browsers to get more functionality to show content that was not originally designed to display. Unfortunately, search engines can not always understand the content that relies on browser plugins, so try to have fewer plugins.
• Descriptive link text: Descriptive link text is a link in your content that can, for example, link your visitors to another webpage or download a file. This link should describe what this link is going to do or see. "Click here" does not cut it.

Mobile-friendliness

A mobile-friendly website is a vital requirement today as almost everyone surfs via mobile. If your website is not customised, you will be perceived as an outdated company and lose many potential customers or partners.

• Legible font size: When visitors surf on their mobile, they may have difficulty reading small texts. So make your content more reader-friendly by using at least 12px.
• Tap targets: The display on mobile can be tiny, and if your call-to-action (CTA) buttons and links are small or too close together, it could be challenging to click on them. Plus, mobile-friendly pages perform better in search results.
• Responsive: Responsive design is to create content that adjusts smoothly to various screen sizes. This gives you higher search rankings for searches on mobile devices.

Website security

How secure is your website? People and search engines love secure websites that are SSL certified and free from vulnerabilities.

• HTTPS: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is data security that ensures that your website is protected over the network, mainly public networks like Wi-Fi.
• Secure javascript libraries: Is your JavaScript old? You should update your JavaScript regularly to keep your website safe from intruders that can exploit outdated JavaScript libraries.

What do you think you should do next?

What should you do when you get to see the result of your website's performance? Some of these points are incredibly important and need to be addressed immediately. For example, do you have that competence in your work team, or do you need to acquire external resources? What kind of professions works with Javascript, CSS or SEO? Many questions will arise, and you will compare different options to find the right solution.

Zooma's participation

As a partner to Hubspot, Zooma has gained access to the Website Grader tool and uses it on our website. It gives us an excellent overview of how we should improve our website with the help of our internal resources and how we can recommend and help our customers. We recommend using this tool to ensure your website has what it takes in the search jungle. 

A site that is optimised for search engines will get your found easier. But there are other benefits, like faster loading speeds, a higher level of security for your visitors and improved accessibility - which all lead to a better user experience. 

Need help fixing your alerts to boost your search visibility? We'll assess your HubSpot portal and take action to resolve SEO issues.

It should be easy to find your company online

Your solutions may be the best on the market, but if prospective customers struggle to find you through a search, they'll choose another company. By fixing the SEO issues that HubSpot has detected, you'll reach the buyers you're interested in and win more leads. Learn more on how Zooma can solve your SEO issues. Once the issues are resolved, you'll have an improved SEO score and a site that is easier to find through search.

In conclusion, effective SEO strategies are essential for improving your website's rankings and driving more organic traffic. By conducting keyword research, optimizing your website's on-page SEO, ensuring your website is mobile-friendly and fast-loading, staying updated with SEO trends, and monitoring your website's performance, you can boost your website's rankings and achieve online success.

That's it for this month's newsletter! We hope you found these insights and tips helpful. Stay tuned for more knowledge about online and digital in our next newsletter. If you have any questions or need further assistance with your SEO efforts, feel free to contact our SEO expert Daniel Falk.

Happy optimising!