What Channel Is The Football On? A Guide To Great SEO

For those who don’t know what SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is, have a read of our beginners guide to SEO here.

For those that have a basic understanding of search engine results (appearing on page one of Google etc.), read on for a great example of how to write content with the end user in mind.

What is Your Customer Searching For Online?

SEO is all about making sure that you appear on Search Engine Results Pages (SERP). Every business wants to rank for whatever it is they do. I’ve lost count of the number of business owners who ask, “How can I be on page one of Google?”

There are 3 main areas of SEO to consider:

Technical SEO
On-Page SEO
Off-page SEO

Now we won’t be going into the details of all of those areas in this blog. However we will be touching on the second of the three: ON-PAGE SEO - the things that you can do on your website to improve your SEO results.

Keyword Density

After an SEO Audit you’ll have decided what your main keywords and key phrases are. These are the things you want to be known for, so if somebody searches for ‘Social Media Management in Warrington’ for example, we’d like to think that our homepage, and our ‘social media management’ page would have lots of interesting content regarding just that. That means that people can find the relevant information after a quick Google search because Google (other search engines are available) will have crawled (searched through) your website and knows what kind of content is on each page.

Think Like a Potential Customer

If your customers were looking for a business just like yours online right now, what types of phrases and keywords would they be typing into Google? Using us an example again, perhaps ‘Best social media agency’ or ‘award winning video production company’ might be some things that we associate with Yellow Spider Media. And no that isn’t arrogance! People love to search for superlatives; Best, Cheapest etc.

Googling a Question

Search Engine users ask questions. All the time. ‘How do I change a tyre?’ ‘How do I change my Facebook profile picture?’ Whatever the request, it helps if you have the answers to the industry relevant questions on your website.

A great example of successful SEO is many of the national newspapers that have articles and special pages of their websites dedicated to one question, “What channel is the football on tonight?” Gone are the days of picking up a Radio Times from the Newsagents and planning your weekly viewing schedule. Everyone just searches online for the information they want.

Try it for yourself! A quick search for this question (make sure there’s a specific game/boxing match etc. on first and look for that in your search) will bring up a whole host of tabloids, broadsheets and other publications, not all of which are synonymous with football highlights. The point is they know that this is a popular search term, and therefore they all create content relevant to that enquiry. By doing this they appear helpful, relevant, and influential. So the next time that potential reader/customer wants to read a match report, for example, they’ll remember which paper has the inside knowledge, and which one helped them out in their time of need.

Where Do I Put Keywords on My Website?

The relevant keywords for your business should be all over your website; In the titles of each page and blog, in the content itself, in the headings, even in the hidden descriptions of the images on your website. It has to be organic though. If you have something akin to “ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY” on your website, Google will spot this unnatural use of keyword cramming, and you’ll be penalised. Adding new blog content regularly is a great, natural way to get new keywords and phrases onto your website. Just think of a question your target audience is likely to ask on Google and supply the answer in a well written blog post.

Don’t Sell on Social Media

Leading on from this last point, don’t do the hard sell in your blogs, articles, and social media posts. Try to remember the 3 Es: Educate, Entertain, and Engage. What you should be trying to do is position your own brand as a trustworthy source of information about any given topic. Once you are considered a thought leader, you might just be the person/company that a customer contacts when they need you.

If you want to know more about how to appear high in searches and improve your own SEO, get in touch with Yellow Spider Media.