SEO Checklist

Building a brand new website is a big step and you (and people like us) work hard to get it right. It's great if people already know you and can find it.

But all that work is reduced in effectiveness if new visitors can't find it. These are people who you'd probably never come across if they didn't come across you.

Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is one of the main keys to having a successful website which people can find easily. It can be critical to finding new customers, and therefore to giving your business a real competitive edge over other businesses in your space. The goal is to appear high in the Google and other search engine rankings, for people who are looking for what you do - and if geography matters in your world - in your location.

There are a number of key things you can do to improve your SEO for 2019 - the following is current information and it may change depending on search engines changing the way they work:

• Make sure your website is optimised to be mobile friendly as Google checks this – you need your website to be truly responsive as the majority of people access websites on the move, on their mobile devices nowadays so it makes sense for your customers too. ( Our websit e, for example, is automatically optimised for mobiles, tablets and PC's, so it doesn't matter how you are reading this blog, it looks right, doesn't it?)
  
• Create a Google My Business listing – it’s free and easy to do and will really help enhance your search results in your location.
  
  • Ask your customers to leave Google ratings on your Google My Business page
  • Post regular information on this page too
• Optimise your content – make sure all of your content is unique – avoid any kind of duplication across web pages and try to ensure each page has around 300 – 500 words of relevant copy for Google to be able to search it successfully.
  
• Allow customers to leave reviews – set up options for customers to leave reviews and testimonials of your business.
  
• Make sure every page of your website has a unique title
  
• Make sure every page of your website has meta descriptions completed as this is what appears under your page title when people search for you, and is helpful to searchers.
  
• Make sure your name, address and phone number appear consistently on every page of your website
  
• Add your business to local listing sites which are relevant to your industry
  

These are just a few simple techniques which you can adopt for your business to help boost your SEO in 2019 – the key one is always to have new, fresh and unique content being added regularly to your site, to ensure it is selected as up-to-date and relevant by Google.

Adding new content, perhaps through a regular blog, helps to keep your website higher up in the search rankings and also gives you an opportunity to showcase your skills and knowledge with your customers.

How can LCM help?

If you’d like help with getting ahead with SEO, please get in touch with us at LCM and we will be happy to talk through what you are trying to achieve. We will ask you guided questions to find out if you need our kind of input, or if another route is best for you.

Telephone 01489 891870 or email info@lcm.co.uk