(shoes squeaking)
- Let's be honest,
SEO can sometimes feel like a long, hard slog,
but we're not gonna be talking about
the slog part of SEO today, right, Luna?
(baby babbling)
We're gonna be showing you some five minute fixes
that you can start implementing on your site immediately
to start getting some results.
(Tim chittering)
Our first fix, title tags, also called page titles,
are still word for word one of the most important
SEO elements on each page of your site.
They're a little hidden piece of code
on every page of your site
that shows up in the browser tab at the top of the window,
and also in the Google search results.
Now, not only does Google look at the content
of your title tags to understand which phrases
your pages should be ranking for,
but also if you've got great title tags
showing up in the search,
people are more likely to click on your site,
which is gonna get you more traffic and more conversions,
which is what we're all here for.
Now, we don't talk about title tags
too much at Exposure Ninja these days,
because truth be told, there's such a basic SEO thing.
But, take a look at this.
The title tag of one of the most popular news sites
in the world, home.
In fact, the BBC's main title tag is BBC dash home.
(Tim imitating explosion)
If you search for accountants,
you might see this site in the search results,
welcome to ICAEW.com dash ICAEW, what does it mean?
Well, it turns out it means the Institute
of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales,
but you'd never guess that from the title tag.
(Tim crying)
She's devastated.
Why is this mad?
Well, title tags are really important for SEO.
BBC is not trying to rank for the word home.
ICAEW is not trying to rank for the phrase ICAEW,
that's their domain.
They would rank for that anyway.
So a good page title includes the target keywords
that you want that page to rank for.
So for example, if we search for accounting software,
we see the page titles of the sites that are ranking
are things like accounting software,
do beautiful business, Xero UK.
Online accounting software for small business,
the best small business accounting software for 2022,
best accounting software UK,
accounting software for small business.
What do you notice?
They all use the target keyword accounting software,
to do anything else is utter madness.
Quick tip here, if you want to check out
some great page titles to get something
which people are gonna click through on,
one place to analyse is not
just your organic ranking competitors,
i.e. the other sites that are ranking for this keyword,
but also take a look at the ads that are running,
because with the ads that are running,
whilst these aren't page titles,
these are advertising headlines,
advertisers will often be split testing these
to work out what gets the most clicks,
and they'll get this data much faster
than people testing their page titles.
So, for example, in two of these ads that are showing up,
we can see that these software companies are targeting
the type of business that they want
to sell their accounting software to,
namely small businesses
and small or medium sized businesses.
So I might include small businesses in my page title
knowing that small business accounting people
are gonna be more likely to click through on that,
because it's clearly relevant to them.
Smart.
Okay, tip number two is meta descriptions.
Now meta descriptions are kind of like
the slightly less famous celebrity sibling,
but they don't get as much attention as page titles,
they don't have much effect
but they're still kind of useful,
and they can still be a quick way to blow up the traffic.
Here's why.
So the meta description is usually the text
that shows in the search results.
For example, this stuff here.
Now, either you set your own meta description,
or Google just pulls some copy from your page,
and shows that instead,
but usually that doesn't work out too well.
For example, look at this meta description,
we just have a list of different banks.
It doesn't really mean anything.
It's not particularly compelling,
and I might be less likely to click
on it because of the meta description.
Now, they've actually got a pretty decent page title,
so I might still click on this search result,
but it's unlikely to be because of the meta description.
Now by contrast, this meta description says
find and compare the best business bank account in the UK
for your company.
Compare rates, features,
and pros and cons of the top providers.
That's compelling,
it tells me exactly what I'm going to get.
Now, whilst Google doesn't look at the content
of your meta description to decide ranking
or relevance to certain keywords,
what will happen is if someone searches
for a particular keyword,
they see your website listed with your meta description,
and then they click on your result,
well, that's gonna show Google
that you're relevant for that search term.
So by having a great compelling meta description
and getting those clicks,
you're likely to improve your ranking over time.
Some other great meta description tips,
you can use meta descriptions to peak people's curiosity.
For example, let's say that I've searched
for InfusionSoft alternatives.
I can think of no...
InfusionSoft's great, but let's be honest,
everyone who's using it is looking for an alternative.
Here we have a fantastic page title,
the five best Infusionsoft alternatives,
I'll never use Keap again,
Keap, it being another name for Infusionsoft,
and a great meta description.
In my opinion, all of these are better than Infusionsoft,
they offer better flexibility with pricing.
I am tantalised, I'm gonna click on that
because it is really compelling and interesting to me.
Another thing you can do in your meta descriptions
is give people your call to action,
i.e. tell them what they're going to be able
to do on the page.
This does two things, firstly,
it attracts people that are most likely to take that action,
i.e, usually those that have the most commercial intent,
those that are ready to take a next step.
But the second thing it does is it pre converts people
so that when I get on that page,
I already know the goal of that page,
and I'm looking for that thing subconsciously.
For example, let's say that you search
for teeth straightening,
and you find the Smile Direct Club site here.
You see the message description says take impressions,
order your clear aligners online now,
and get straight teeth in months.
See if you're a candidate for our
affordable braces alternative now.
So, what am I gonna get when I land on that page?
Well, I'm gonna be able to see if I'm a candidate.
Okay, five minute fix number three is content headings.
Geez, if I had a care bear for every time
I saw terrible, underoptimized content headings,
I'd be sending mountains of care bears to landfill.
Now, if we stick with the teeth straightening example,
what is wrong with this page?
I mean, sure, apart from the page title,
the lack of content,
the absence of any sort of introduction
to this business whatsoever,
the lack of instructions about what to do next.
Apart from all of that, what's wrong with this page?
(crickets chirping)
(record scratching)
This heading, Overbite,
it gives absolutely no context to new visitors.
Not only is this unlikely to rank,
because Google would look at this page and say,
what should it rank for?
Maybe the phrase overbite.
If it did rank for that phrase,
nobody is going to spend time on this page,
because there is no context.
The heading does nothing to set the scene
for the new visitor that's landed on the page.
Now, what this page probably really wants to target
is a phrase like how to fix overbite.
That's a problem phrase that this business solves,
so that should be the page title,
and it should be the content heading here.
Now, this is quite a common problem,
and what happens is when people design a website,
they design the subpages of that site
to sort of act as a next step from the homepage,
and what they don't think about
is making those subpages rank in their own right.
If this subpage was designed to rank in its own right,
it would therefore need to accept cold traffic,
i.e. people that had no context,
they hadn't already been on the homepage,
and if it was going to do that, for example,
targeting a phrase like how to fix overbite,
that would need to be the topic of the page,
and then Invisalign would be presented
as the solution to that problem.
Now, they could quite easily do this,
but not what a heading like that.
(baby cooing)
Here's another example, going back to accountants.
We can see in their page title,
the phrase they want to target is payroll services,
but the trouble is when we get on the page,
the heading is just payroll.
Well, this page is not about payroll.
This page is about payroll services.
This is an accountancy firm that provides payroll services,
so whilst this seems like a small thing,
actually this intent gap is massive.
If this page was actually about payroll,
and it was about the ins and outs of payroll,
and how payroll worked, and what it was,
and how long payroll have been in existence, then fine,
but it's not, and that intent gap is really important.
And by the way, if you're enjoying this video so far,
over to Luna for a short ad break.
No? Okay.
Well, if you want some free help with the digital marketing,
the team here at Exposure Ninja
has a free website and marketing review,
which can help you get some clarity
on what you need to prioritise
with your SEO content marketing, pay per click,
and your web development.
Head over to ExposureNinja.com,
fill out a short questionnaire.
We'll show you where to focus your attention
over the next 6 or 12 months to generate more sales
and leads from your website.
The service is completely free,
so go to exposureninja.com
to request your free website and marketing review today.
Okay, tip number four.
This might take you a little longer than five minutes,
but it's gonna save you a tonne of time,
so I'm still gonna include it today,
and that is rewriting old posts.
Rather than writing a whole new article
for your site each week or month,
sometimes it's much faster and more effective
to go back and rewrite old posts instead,
and now we do this all the time for clients.
So let's say, for example,
that we've got our client in accountancy software,
and we're trying to rank for an informational phrase
like how to automate payroll,
because we know that people who are searching for that
could be interested in buying accountancy software.
Now, let's say that they've got an old post on their site,
which is doing okay, but it's a little bit out of date.
It's not very detailed,
and we think it could be spruced up a little bit.
Now, we can fix this up by making it longer,
adding more detail, bringing it up to date,
maybe adding some graphics, much quicker than we can
writing a whole new post from scratch.
And because this old post might have links, ranking,
and traffic already, we'll tend to see results much faster.
Boom, tip number five is supplier testimonials.
This is killer.
Here's the strategy in 20 seconds.
Go give you all of your supplies a great testimonial.
When they add it to their website,
they'll include a link back to your site,
particularly if the testimonial
you've given them is fantastic,
they'll really want to show it off.
And there you have it.
Of course, in order to get the best from your SEO work,
you're going to need software,
where they'll rank tracking, competitive analysis,
audit software, monitoring software.
There's so much SEO software out there.
How do you know what's good and what isn't?
Well, we've used a whole bunch
of SEO software at Exposure Ninja, and in this video,
we ranked the best and worst SEO software.
Go and check it out now.