Improve your website rankings on search engines by: 1) utilising SEOs, 2) writing and editing original and different web pages and articles, 3) achieving more ‘hits’ and longer visits, and 4) keeping your website and blog ‘alive’.

1. SEO-ing your website and articles

Use SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) keywords throughout your website and articles. But not so many, or so repetitively, that it puts your readers off.

That is, use SEOs (keywords) but use them wisely. Make sure you use all the types of SEOs your clients will be looking for. For example: the main SEOs for my business are editing, proofreading, transcription, scribing, copy writing. But I also make sure I insert in my website other less popular SEOs which some clients will use when searching for the types of services I offer: copy editing, proof-editing, audio typing, transcribing, report writing.

Once you’ve ‘SEO-d’ a web page – made sure the page includes a variety of key words relevant to the topic – read it out loud to make sure your SEOs are not too repetitive. Reading out loud is a tried and true writers’ and editors’ tool for getting the text as close to perfect as possible. If you’ve loaded your web page with too many SEOs your ear will pick it up: delete words where necessary until the SEO balance is right.

2. Original and different

Regularly producing new, interesting and different articles or web pages can help your website’s search engine rankings.

Write or edit the content of your web pages in such a way that each is different to all the others and targeted specifically to the purpose of that particular web page and utilise SEOs focused on the subject of each of those pages. For example: One of my web pages is called ‘Online audio transcription’: all the information on that page is focused on that subject, and includes SEOs such as ‘audio transcription’, ‘online transcription’, ‘transcribing’ etc. Another web page is called ‘Scribing and writing reports’: all the information on that page is focused on that subject and includes SEOs such as ‘scribing’, ‘report writing’, ‘scribing dictation’, ‘selection reports’ etc.

Write or edit each of your articles so that although they may cover the same topic as a web page or another article you have written, they are original and different. (Some companies call editing one of your articles or web pages into a new, original and different-sounding article ‘repurposing’.) Repurposing one of your web pages or articles into a new article that covers a similar subject but has a different angle or focus is timesmart writing and editing.

When you repurpose the material in one article into another, make sure the ‘new’ publication is at least 20% different to the original. It must be different enough that it is a reasonably ‘new’, original and different to anything else you have written.

Note: beware of plagiarism. Write about what you know from personal experience, not what others have written or said. Write about what you’re good at, passionate about and what your potential clients will be interested in.

3. More ‘hits’ and longer visits

The more hits you get to your website, the better. But hits alone are not enough: search engines want to see your site being visited for longer by potential clients because if people are hanging around your website to visit other pages or read other articles this indicates to the search engines that your website is at least interesting and at most really fantastic.

The only way to encourage people to hang around your website or look up different articles in your blog is to make sure each website page, and article, is at least interesting and at most really fantastic.

A great way to get more hits to your website is to house your blog in your actual website, write regular articles, and share your articles and links to your site around different social media and other outlets. For example: when I publish an article on LinkedIn): I either (1) include a link to my blog or website at the bottom of each article so that if the reader likes my article they will click on that link to read more articles or check out my website, or (2) limit the article to an introduction or brief summary of what the article is about, followed by a link for those who want to read more (making sure the lead-in is attractive to readers so that they do want to read on.) When they click on the link they arrive at the full blog article within my website. Each click, of course, brings a potential client to my website and gives my website a hit.

4. Keep your website and blog ‘alive’

Websites and blogs are online publications and can only be kept current and ‘alive’ if they are regularly updated.

There is no such thing as a perfect website: improvement is always possible. Keep your website up-to-date by regularly editing it – not just one or two pages, but every page of your site needs to be kept ‘alive’ and well.

Keep your blog current and relevant by regularly writing new articles.

If you stop updating your site and writing articles, your website and blog will no longer be ‘alive’ and this will be noticed by not only potential clients but also search engines and your rankings will drop.

For example: every two or three days I pop into my website and edit a page or two – sometimes just a very small improvement, deletion or addition. Since commencing my blog a year and a half ago I’ve produced an average of one blog article a week. I’m not so regular when it comes to publishing LinkedIn articles because I’m still working out whether to use LinkedIn to repurpose blog articles as different LinkedIn articles, or merely publish introductions and links to my blog.

Like everything else in life, your articles and your website are works in progress.

Give your website a face lift

I’m currently writing an article about the importance of reviewing your website and if necessary, giving it a complete revamp or face lift. So if you’d like a few pointers about how to do this: watch this space.