As a marketeer, it is my job to help people achieve measurable growth and one of the most common questions I get asked is “how I can get more leads from my website?”. I could write a series of articles on the subject of websites and business growth but in this, the first of our marketing columns in Today’s Wills and Probate, we are going to demystify the complex subject of SEO (search engine optimisation) and to provide some guidance around what you should be doing to improve the performance of your website in the rankings.
For those that don’t know, SEO is the process of increasing the visibility of your website in search engines and search rankings. Improving your SEO can be a painstaking process and can take time, but there are some things you can do to work on SEO before seeking outside help. We are going to share this with five top tips:
One: Set up analytics to measure your traffic
It’s pointless to do all of this work on your website if you don’t know how it’s performing. Set up Google Analytics or look to see if there is an analytics tool on your website CMS (Content Management System). Analyse your present traffic, traffic sources, session durations and your bounce rate (percentage at which people only view one page before leaving). These will give you data that you can use to plan to make website (and SEO) improvements.
Two: Look at your domain authority score
Your domain authority score means nothing on its own but should be measured in conjunction with your site traffic. To find out your domain authority score, check this free website: Domain Authority Score. This will enable you to see how many backlinks your website has as well as how many linking sites you have. To improve your domain authority score, you should look to build backlinks to your website. A good way to do this is through PR, guest blogs, and position of authority marketing.
Three: Consistently publish relevant and engaging content
Google will consistently be trawling the internet looking for content which answer search queries. As part of a complex algorithm, it will analyse more of your site content looking to see how your website is performing, page loading speeds etc. It’s also looking to see which sites are active and which might perhaps be dormant. Keeping an active website with new content is a good indicator for Google but you need to publish new content regularly and the content needs to be engaging. This will result in an increase in traffic to your site.
Four: Use links in your content and keep people on your website
If you’re putting a link in an article or on a page, make sure the link looks tidy. Hyperlink text rather than directly posting the link. Consider adding links to other relevant content or pages on your website to keep visitors on your website a little longer and thus improving your bounce rate (this is known as an internal link). Also look for reciprocal links so that if you’re linking to another website, they are linking back in return. You should also ensure that the sources of the links that you are posting to are trustworthy.
Five: Fix any broken links
There are a number of tools out there which will help you check whether links on your website are broken. Simply type your web address into the search bar and look to identify whether any links are broken. Most tools are free and will point you to any broken links which need fixing.
All in all, these tips should help you improve your visibility and improve your website ranking. Using these tips in conjunction with other digital footprint strategies will improve lead generation and conversion rates too. Stay tuned for more information and tips from Legal Growth. For more information about SEO, click here.
