Is Your SEO Leaving Money on the Table?

Sure, Google is out to get you! And me too, but having them deliver free visitors to your front door is still useful in my opinion.

Every month I read how much harder SEO is becoming, and how people are getting penalized and whacked by Google.

But don’t let it get you down.

You can still be do all the basics of SEO and get results. Even better results than you are right now!

Although it isn’t that hard, it gets easily forgotten or ignored.

And if you do that, you are leaving money on the table my friend, and someone else will take it instead!

Don’t Forget the Basics of SEO

So what are the basics then?

Well, quite simply the on page SEO (things on your site) that you can control. These things actually provide the basis for any SEO that you do.

If you don’t have the basics right, then Google won’t know what to rank you for.

So why not influence Google with a little SEO magic.

On Page SEO Sets the Foundation

You have probably heard it all before, but were you really paying attention?

On page SEO is an absolute must, and is one of the few things Google is not slapping us all for at the moment.

What are the on page SEO basics you need to be doing then?

SEO Elements on Your Pages & Posts

It all starts with the basic SEO elements on your pages and posts. These babies are the key to influencing Google with a little hocus pocus!

Here is a quick list of what you need to have covered with every page/post that you publish:

• Page Title
• Meta Description
• URL (aka permalink)
• Image Alt tag (Learn more here)
• Use the keyword in a H2 or H3
• Use keywords within the post (watch your keyword density – see the video below)

Does This Really Work?

All of these elements play a role in showing search engines what your post is about and the topics (keywords) that they want to rank you for.

Because it is not longer easy to simply rank for a specific keyword, you should focus on writing your blog posts naturally and include keywords in the relevant place as you go along.

But once your post is written, I do recommend going back and checking that you have put your keywords in the “key” places (as I mentioned above).

It does not take very long, and if you have a plugin like WordPress SEO from Yoast, it is quite easy to do most of this in minutes.

In fact, today you are in for a treat because I have a video on how to do all of this using Yoast:

Money on the Table: Google is An Ad for Your Content

So this is where your lost opportunity comes into it.

Your Post Title and Meta Description and URL form your ad on Google. As you can see in the example below.

When you see a search result on Google that is what appears. And this is what is competing with Google Adwords. (they are above position one already!)

Therefore, these parts of on page SEO are actually crucial.

And one of the cool things you can do with your blog posts, even after publishing them, is to tweak these elements (the Title and Description) to get more traffic.

That’s right. More traffic than you are already getting, just from a little on page SEO tweaking! Sweet!

To Click or Not to Click

Even if you are appearing on the first page of Google, you might not be getting the visitors clicking through to your website that you deserve.

And this is because your Title or Description are not appealing enough. Sorry to be the bringer of bad news!

So what I periodically do for myself and my customers, is go through Webmaster Tools and see what posts and keywords are getting traction. And by traction I mention top ten results in Google.

Then you can take a look at the CTR (Click Through Rates) which should be approximately as follows:

This was brought to you by our lovely friends at Search Engine Watch.

If your CTR results are less than these, there is obviously room for improvement.

And since you are already ranking for this position, it is worth improving your “google ad” and getting more traffic.

Show me the money!

How To Decide Which Results To Tweak

Just a quick note on tweaking these results. It is important that you don’t go fixing something that is not going to bring you traffic. So I only go for results that have a larger number of impressions (how often they are shown in Google results).

So don’t be fooled by things you are ranking for in Google that only get 2 impressions a month. They are not worth tweaking. At least, not for me.

Of course it all depends on your industry, so you need to see the top impressions and rankings for your particular site in Webmaster Tools.

To Sum It All Up

Doing on page SEO is crucial to your SEO efforts and is one of the key things you can control.

But making sure you do it correctly, and every time is the key.

Not only that, but if you periodically check how you are doing on Webmaster Tools you can also grab some of that free money still sitting on the table!

If you need some help with your SEO efforts, feel free to give me a shout here.