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TOP SEO TIPS FROM LUKASZ ZELEZNY ON WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2020

Search engine optimisation is extremely important as it can have multiple effects on the performance and visibility of your website. Therefore, we’ve caught up with Lukasz Zelezny, SEO expert from Smarter Media who has put together his recommendations of what to look out for in 2020 in SEO.

1. Use Analytics tools

What: Analytics tools

Why: To start the data-oriented decision process

One of the most important ways to make your SEO efforts pay off is to use proper traffic analysis and tracking tools. There are two must-have tools - Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Both are free, but most of the time business owners are using Google Analytics only. Google Search Console is an additional tool that can give you a lot of information about what queries potential customers are using, and Keyword Hero (which is a freemium platform) can help you to merge data between the two. Finally, it is worth mentioning the Bing Webmaster tool. Even if you don't expect much traffic from Bing, their tool can give you some valuable insights. More data, in that case, is always helpful.

2. Choose your 360 degrees SEO related tool

What: A business-as-usual day-to-day platform for SEO

Why: Because you want to proactively influence organic traffic

There are plenty of SEO tools, such as SEMRush, Searchmetrics, Sistrix, SpyFu and SimilarWeb. It’s important that you allocate a budget for them as these tools are rarely free, but are very useful. In return, you will receive a lot of information about how your website can be optimised better, day-to-day keyword position tracking and a lot of insights about your competitors. You can also find out what keywords they are using, not only for SEO but also for PPC.

3. Brand tracking

What: Tracking where your brand is mentioned across the online environment

Why: Because you want to measure customer intent and know what people think about your brand, as well as use mentions to gather links

You can use some of the tools I mentioned before or you may want to test a dedicated tool - examples of these are TalkWalker, Brand24 or Brandmentions.

Imagine a hypothetical situation - you started a PR campaign and you want to know what websites, blogs, and forums started talking about your brand. 

The platforms mentioned above will help you a lot with receiving alerts - every time your brand is mentioned, you will know. What can you do next? Well, you can check if that mention is a link - a high amount of quality links pointing to your website is one of the strongest factors in deciding where you are ranking. 

4. Google My Business

What: Securing brand name, social proof (reviews)

Why: Because people trust more companies with a physical address

Let’s continue talking about branding. You’ve seen that map with an address on the right side of Google Search Result pages plenty of times, right? How does it get there? The answer is simple. You need to add your business to Google My Business. To do this either:

  • Claim ownership of your existing address (if that address belongs to your company)

or 

  • Add your address to Google My Business.

What happens next is that Google will send you a postcard with a code. Once received, you can enter the code into Google My Business to confirm that your physical address really belongs to you. Therefore, it’s important not to add virtual office addresses, PO Boxes or addresses that you will not be able to pick up mail from.

Once this has been done, you can start collecting reviews, start adding your opening hours (if your business is a client-facing) and much more.

And, most importantly, you will secure a huge right column on the Google Search Results page once someone that lives in your region types in your brand name.

5. Pagespeed

What: Reducing the loading time of your website

Why: Because Google prefers websites that load quickly and will rank them higher 

Make sure your website is fast. 

What does that really mean? It means that it must load quickly.

Amazon calculated that a page load slowdown of just one second could cost it $1.6 billion in sales each year, so try to make sure you are using a good, reputable and reliable hosting provider. 

Try to use free tools that can check how fast your website is loading - for example, Lighthouse or GT Metrix - and then follow the suggestions these tools give you.

6. SSL (HTTPS)

What: Keeping your website secure

Why: Because Google prefers websites that are secure and will rank them higher (HTTPS)

You’ve definitely seen that green, URL-bar and lock sign in your browser, signalling that the website is secure. This is known as SSL.

Back in the day, only banking websites used this solution but today, however, almost everyone is using SSL. 

Where to start then? 

Some hosting providers deliver a free one (i.e. through Let's Encrypt) while some others require you to pay a yearly fee.

If you are not sure if you have SSL or not, then you can use the SSLLabs tool that works as a kind of SSL Healthcheck.

Summary:

SEO can be complicated so it may sound a bit too much for you alone and you may want to consider hiring a consultant or agency. 

This way, you as a business owner can still run your business while an SEO agency can run your SEO campaign.

But even if you decide to go with external resources like an agency or consultant, it’s worth having enough knowledge on SEO yourself in order to verify how the agency is delivering.

Give Nataley Fryer at Smarter Media a call today on 01793 292171 to get a free website audit for your business!

www.smarter-media.co.uk

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