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Business

Jonathan Grieve
MOD
Jonathan Grieve
Treehouse Moderator 91,253 Points
Posted by Jonathan Grieve
Jonathan Grieve
Treehouse Moderator 91,253 Points

SEO for a non SEO specialist

Hi everyone.

I have a client who has asked me to help research a set of keywords for his websites to help increase his website ranking. However as I've said to him I am not an SEO specialist beyond the "On page" methods for preparing websites for search engines.

It's a WordPress website

The targeted keywords are:

  • English
  • Maths
  • KS2
  • KS3
  • KS4
  • GCSE
  • Primary
  • Secondary
  • Tutoring

Beyond the content, what can be done to boost the ranking and keep that ranking in the long term? Do we need to refine the keywords for example? Include geographical locations like north east? Any helpful tools I should be aware of?

Thanks :)

Ashish Mehra
Ashish Mehra
523 Points

Long tail keyword are more SEO freindly I guess and try to see the keywords of rivals and copy some of the best keyword from their site.I am also not expert in SEO but I must say you should checkout the tutorials of Daragh Walsh on SEO for that here is the link https://www.udemy.com/seo-tutorial/ .

1 Answer

Jacob McKinney
Jacob McKinney
6,796 Points
Jacob McKinney
Jacob McKinney
6,796 Points

First, you may have issues becoming a top ranked website running WordPress. This is because of the slow load times this system has and search engines now deduct points on load times. Not impossible, just harder than it should be. Making a website load faster will include doing things like, mobile optimization, a mobile first strategy, compressing images, including css and javascript at the end of your webpage files, etc. You can see how Google views a website by getting a free Webmaster Tools account from Google. This is the place where you'll want to submit your sitemap, do content highlighting, review your keyword rankings and report any malicious links pointing to your website.

Second, you really want long tail keywords. Words / Phrases of 3 or more words together, not single words as most websites aren't actually valid for the single word versions they attempt to rank for.

Third, Reputation and Content are King!!! This means, release regular blogs to keep your content fresh, at least once a month. Obtain in-links that point from authoritative websites within your subject matter, to your home page and sub pages of your website. This can be done with guest blogging, directories, social networks and press releases just to name a few sources. This should be done naturally and not 1000+ links all at once, often I tell customers to start with $100-$500 a month as a budget for doing these things.

Last, Time. SEO has never been an instant thing. Often taking 6 to 12 months to really see the results from your efforts. Even though today this can actually be quite fast with the new Google Algorithm, long term is what you're looking for to see increased traffic from Organic SEO, which is what we're talking about here. Meanwhile, new content and new in-links efforts should be continued as they should naturally for any real business that continues to exist.

SEO while not Rocket Science, does have its methods to obtain results and any company that truly puts forth an effort to get their company out there, will see them. Good luck and happy networking!