Seven simple SEO tips that won’t break the bank

Simon / Pixabay

For the first couple of years of Black Coffee Communication, this site floundered in the back blocks of Google, unseen and unloved.

I didn’t mind that much. After all, I was getting work through referrals, word of mouth and a hella lot of networking, both online and in person.

But around the start of this financial year, I realised life would be a lot easier if my phone started ringing thanks to people finding me on Google. So I made a conscious decision to work on some very basic SEO.

About a month ago, Black Coffee Communication ranked on Page 4 of Google for the term “Adelaide copywriter” and “Adelaide communications consultant”. This week, I am at the number 1 spot. I also rank on the first page for “annual report writer” and “annual report writing“. (And number 1 for “Adelaide annual report writer”)

There was no magic formula, no money spent with an SEO consultant, just some simple adjustments to the way I was already working. I don’t know which of the following SEO tips worked better than the others, and I don’t even really know if all of them played a part. It’s just what I did.

But before I share my SEO tips, I just have one caveat. None of these terms are particularly competitive and if you are trying to rank for a competitive keyword, this probably won’t be enough. I don’t rank anywhere for “copywriter”, which is FAR more competitive, and I am at Page 5 for “Australian Copywriter“. I am not even aiming at the first keyword and am still working on the latter (a month ago I did not rank at all for “Australian copywriter”).

The way I see it, though, the less competitive the keywords, the more likely that the phone calls I am getting will be pre-qualified. They are looking specifically for an Adelaide copywriter and once I get them on the phone, I can (usually) close the deal.

So, with all that said, here are my “secrets”.

Changed some text on my home page and added a couple of new pages

While the previous text was fine, it wasn’t written with keywords in mind. So I added a few and hyperlinked them to relevant services pages. I also made sure it was still informative and interesting for the human reader, not just the Google bots. I also added a page specifically for annual report writing, and an FAQ.

Internal links

One of the reason I added the annual report writing pages and the FAQs was so I could set up some internal links to them. Not necessarily for readers to follow (although that is nice) but for Google to see the pages I wanted it to see.

Blogged with purpose

I have been blogging weekly for a while now, but it never had a purpose other than setting me up as a subject matter expert. When I decided I wanted to rank for annual report writing, I wrote a series of posts about annual report writing, hyperlinking to my new annual report writing page. I have also been hyperlinking to other services, such as copywriting and communications consultant.

Became more active on Google+

Look, I don’t know if this helped much, but it does seem more than co-incidental that Google noticed me when I paid more attention to Google. Just sayin’.

Set up Google Authorship and Google Places

See above. Google authorship means that Google recognises me as the author of my blog; while Google Places allows me to show up in local searches.

Social sharing

While I have always shared my posts on Facebook and Twitter, I changed my social sharing widget to Shareaholic. I now also share on Linked in (my profile and in groups), Google + (personal and business profile) and on StumbleUpon. I don’t get any “stumbles”, but I am sure that the backlink is valuable. Also, I can see other people sharing my posts.

Installed an awesome SEO plugin

If you have a WordPress site, go and install Yoast now. It is seriously the best (and easiest) SEO plug in that I have found. Yoast means I can see EXACTLY what is happening with my chosen keyword phrase – in this post, it is SEO tips. As I am writing, I can see  – among other things – that the keyword density is a bit low but that it appears in the URL. So I can adjust as I type.

There you have it – no trickery, no technical mumbo-jumbo, just simple SEO tips anyone can implement. But keep in mind – it does not happen overnight (I have been watching my site slowly travel up through the pages – and sometimes drop back a little as well).

I hope that this helps some of you that are struggling with SEO – and good luck!

Till next time

Nicole