Have you just launched your website and now need it to show up in Google search results? Or maybe you’ve got an established website but you’re underwhelmed with how it is ranking on important keywords. In this article we will walk you through 5 steps you can take to improve your search engine ranking results.

Step 1 – Setup Google Search Console

Search console is tool created by Google to help you to measure your websites traffic and performance. It can also identify issues with your website that need to be resolved. Click here to setup Google Search Console.

Step 2 – Keyword research and shortlisting

Think about the kinds of questions you get from customers, the services you provide and the area you operate in and write them all into categorised lists. Here are some example of what that could look like:

Questions from customers

• how to fix a clogged drain
• why is my central heating not working
• plumbers open on weekends

Services you provide

• blocked drains
• leak detection
• appliance installation

Area you operate in

• Northcote plumber
• best plumber in Northcote
• plumber reviews Northcote

These are just examples, you should brainstorm as many keywords as possible.

Enter your list of brainstormed keywords into Google AdWords Keyword Planner (free) to identify keywords that have enough volume to be worth targeting. Also make a note of keywords with high competition level and a high cost-per-click (CPC). A keyword with medium to high competition and a high cost per click means that your competitors are spending money on these keywords, which would indicate they are generating business from these keywords. Create a shortlist of your best keywords.

Step 3 – Create content targeted to your shortlisted keywords

For your keywords related to the services you provide, create service pages that explain all about that specific service that you provide. This helps potential customers to understand what you actually provide and if that matches with what they need.

For keywords related to questions from customers, create blog posts that pose the question and have a detailed response about how to resolve that problem. Many times it would be impossible for customers to actually resolve it themselves (eg. they would need specialist equipment, experience or qualifications), however this is still useful to them to understand what is involved to complete the work and can make them more comfortable to engage your services. Importantly, your blog posts will show up in search results when people are researching these questions online.

For keywords related to the area you operate in, ensure you have a detailed ‘Contact Us’ page that clearly shows your physical address, phone number, email address etc. This will ensure you show up in local search results with Google and other search engines when people search for your services in your area.

Step 4 – Perform Onsite / Technical SEO

Google and other search engines ‘crawl’ your website to index it and to display it in search results when they think it’s the right result to show. It’s really important that your website is structured properly so that search engines properly understand what your website is about. The main things you should focus on are:

• Create a sitemap.xml file which tells search engines the entire structure of your website
• Create a robots.txt file which tells search engine crawlers which pages to crawl
• Use correct HTML tags for content. Page headings should use the <h1> tag, sub headings should be <h2> or <h3>, content should be within <p> tags. Also ensure you define a page title using the <title> tag. As each page or post is targeting a keyword, be sure to include your targeted keyword within all these tags.
• Image sizing and format – Size your images to the size that they will be displayed so that the image size is not larger than it needs to be. Also it should be formatted in .webp format which is highly optimised for web. Doing these two things will ensure that images load quickly which search engines factor in when providing results
• Internal linking – ensure you link between your pages with text links using your targeted keywords, which reinforces to search engines what your pages are about

Step 5 – Create backlinks from other websites

Search engines only want to serve up search results that are going to be useful, otherwise no one would use their search engine. One significant way Google and other sites measures websites is with back links, or links from other websites to your website.

You can think of back links kind of like a personal reference that says, “this is a useful website about <your services>”. When you have one back link, it’s hard for search engines to verify if your website is useful or not, so they don’t show your website in search results. When you have hundreds of different and independent back links saying “this is a useful website about <your services>” search engines can more safely make the assumption that it’s a great website because there is consensus from many different sources.

There are two ways to create backlinks, you either create them or ask for them. Ways you can create backlinks include:

• create social media profiles, link and share content from your website (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.)
• list your business on directories (Google My Business, Yellow Pages, True Local)
• create a profile on review websites (Product Reviews, Trust pilot)
• list your business on classifieds (Gumtree, hipages, Facebook Marketplace, eBay)
• do you sponsor or have you donated to local charities or organisations? ask that they link to your website from theirs (footy clubs, cricket clubs, netball clubs, lions clubs, rotary clubs, charities)
• do you have industry expertise? offer comments or give interviews to publications (online newspapers, podcasts, newsletters, radio, guest blog posts etc.)
• create and upload videos about your company, services you provide or jobs you’ve completed (YouTube, Vimeo etc.)

Step 6 – Measure and optimise

To maintain and improve search engine rankings over time, creating content (step 3) and creating backlinks (step 5) are an ongoing task. In order to make the best use of your time, you want to first measure how your current efforts are performing and then optimise your future SEO efforts based on what you’ve learned works best. To do this I recommend setting up analytics on your website such as Amplitude, Google Analytics 4 or Statcounter. All of these have free plans you can use.

Improving your search engine rankings is not complicated but does take some expertise and a lot of work, both in initial setup and ongoing effort. If you have any questions about implementing an SEO strategy for your website please get in touch for a no obligation chat.