Simple ways to boost your content's SEO

Lucinda Brassey
May 9, 2024
4 min read

I know, Search Engine Optimisation sounds pretty damn boring. . .

But even the most exciting of businesses need to deal with the mundane stuff sometimes.

If you’ve created your website, most platforms will provide easy guidance to boost your SEO. But you need to take the lead to ensure the content you’re putting on your site is helping too.

Why?

It gives your website more visibility. More visibility means more visitors. More visitors = more potential sales.
It builds trust. Well-thought-out SEO will help you rank higher on a Google search. What does that mean? The higher you rank, the more you’ll be trusted by your future customers.
It helps you beat the bots. Now more people are using AI or their written content, they’re not producing anything original that highlights their own experiences or expertise. Having original content that has considered SEO will set you apart from the businesses that can’t be bothered.

So, let’s dive into some of the simple steps you can take to boost your SEO through your content without wading through the techy jargon. . .

Keyword research

What is it?

Keyword Research helps you pinpoint the best words to use to reach your target customer and appear on Google search results.

It gives you valuable insight into what your ideal customers are searching for and what they want to know. This means you can create specific content around exactly what they’re looking for.

What keyword search tools can you use?

Luckily, there’s no need to spend hours on end looking for what you need.

My personal favourite tool is Answer the Public – if you register your email you’ll get 3 free searches a day. Unless you’re creating huge amounts of content in one go, this should be plenty.

Other tools you can use are:

Question DB

Google Trends

Keyword Surfer

Keyword Sheeter

Not only does it help you get seen more in people’s searches, but keyword research is a brilliant resource if you’re trying to come up with content ideas – especially for long-form content like blogs.

And it’s not shady – check out what other keywords/phrases other people in your industry are using. There will always be trends that are worth keeping an eye on. As long as the content you create around that is original then you’re good to go.

Warning – don’t get bogged down in repeating keywords in your content – keep it varied.

For example, a blog post targeting the keyword "best lightweight hiking backpacks" should include other phrases like "top hiking backpacks" or "lightweight backpacks for trekking".

This variety helps capture more search queries while staying relevant to the topic.

And whatever you do, don’t stuff the keywords into every other sentence when it’s not necessary. This results in poor readability and can trigger search engines to penalise your site for trying to manipulate search results.

Get blogging!

Laptop on a desk with blog written on the screen

You might have heard otherwise, but blogs are still in my friend!

Adding quality content to your website is going to get you more visitors – fact. And blogs are a great way to do that.

Once you’ve done your keyword research, you should already have a bunch of ideas on what to write about.

And take a look at what your customers are asking you directly, is there something around that you could write about? Even a topic from your FAQs could be a way to start.

All you need to make sure of is that it’s relevant to your customer base.

So, if you facilitate hiking weekends, you could write something like. . .

“The top 5 hiking boots to wear this winter”

“Kent’s best hikes with a view”

“A beginners guide to hiking in the UK”

And so on . . .

Not only is it good for the workings behind SEO, but it puts you in a great position to show your customers you’re someone who knows what they’re talking about and who they can trust.

And don’t forget intent. . .

Before you write anything, think about what your reader’s intent is:

Are they looking for information?
Are they looking for help to make an informed decision?
Are they looking for an offer or do they want to make a purchase?

Link it up. . .

Including backlinks on your website to other pages or other websites helps Google find and rank your content.

So for example, if you’re writing a blog you could include links to other sources that are relevant to your topic.

Be careful here though – there’s no use linking to anything irrelevant or low quality, so make sure you carefully consider any links to external sites. Don’t whack anything in there for the sake of it.

You can purchase backlinks from companies – but don’t waste your money. There’s no guarantee of the quality of the links which will only hinder your SEO rather than improve it.

Don’t skip the ‘small stuff’

Make sure you’re filling out the Meta descriptions and titles along with ALT text for any images (image description) you include in the blog.

Whatever platform you’re using to post your blogs should prompt you to do this, but make sure you don’t skip this step.

These not only improve your site's SEO but also enhance the user experience by clearly communicating what your page is about before they even visit it. What does that mean?