If you are a small business owner, SEO can be daunting. How can I stand out from millions of websites? How can I compete with national brands? However, once you understand the principles, it becomes much easier to navigate. In this post, I will break down the jargon and present a 15-point plan to help you perfect your niche and get your website ready to rocket.
How Google Ranks a Website
1. Crawling: How Google Discovers Your Website
Google constantly scans the web using automated bots called crawlers (or Googlebots). These crawlers follow links from one page to another, discovering new and updated content.
2. Indexing: How Google Understands Your Content
Once Google crawls a page, it stores and organizes the content in its massive database—this process is called indexing. For Google to index your site correctly, you need to provide clear signals about what your pages are about.
3. Ranking: How Google Determines Search Results
After crawling and indexing, Google ranks your content based on relevance, quality, and user experience. Google also considers backlinks, which are links from other reputable websites pointing to your site. High-quality backlinks signal to Google that your website is trustworthy and authoritative, helping boost your ranking.
15-Point Plan to Improve Your Website Ranking
Optimise for Crawling & Indexing
- Use a clean website structure with clear internal links.
- Ensure every page is reachable through links (avoid orphan pages, ie. pages with no links to other parts of the website)
- Submit an XML sitemap to Google Search Console. (Don’t forget to ask you website designer to do this or If you use WordPress or Wix they can generate one automatically.)
- Avoid broken links and fix errors using Google Search Console.
- Use descriptive page titles & meta descriptions to tell Google what the page is about.
Enhance User Experience & Content
- Optimise image alt text so Google understands your visuals.
- Ensure your website is mobile-friendly and loads fast (use https://pagespeed.web.dev to test the website speed both on mobile and desktop.)
- Use structured headings (H1, H2, H3, etc.) to organise your content.
- Content Quality: Be an expert in your field and write for real users, not just search engines. Think about what your customers told you. Google have advanced algorithm but you are the person who knows the customers.
- Keyword Optimisation: Use relevant keywords naturally in titles, headings, and content. Focus on one primary keyword on each page with 2-3 secondary keywords.
Improve Technical SEO & Authority
- Make your content easy to read, with clear sections and a Table of Contents for long posts.
- Technical SEO: A well-structured website is like a well-built house—it needs a strong foundation. You don’t need to be a tech expert, but ensure:
- Your site is secure (HTTPS)
- It loads fast and is mobile-friendly
- You have a sitemap for Google to find pages easily
- Earn backlinks from reputable websites to boost your site’s credibility.
- Optimise for local SEO by ensuring your business is listed on Google My Business and have dedicated content for local businesses.
- Regularly update and improve your content to stay relevant in search ranking.
Conclusion
SEO isn’t about tricking Google—it’s about making your website accessible, valuable, and easy to navigate for users. By following these principles, your website will be well-optimised and stand a better chance of ranking higher in search results.
🚀 Need help optimising your website? Contact Us today! We can audit your existing website and provide an actionable plan to improve your SEO. If you’re looking for a fresh start, we can also build a brand-new website for you using the best SEO practices.
