It goes without question that having high visibility in search engines like Google & Bing can bring about more leads. That part is obvious. But what’s not so obvious is the process of getting good rankings.

Like most business owners, you’re probably bombarded with spam emails from SEO agencies claiming that they can get you to #1 in Google. So what are SEO agencies doing that improves rankings and, better yet, what can you do yourself to make sure you rank well in Google?

Here’s our solid SEO plan which we’ve created in conjunction with SEO expert Clive Morley from I.Am.Strategist

1. Use logical URLs, titles and headings that connect what you do, where you do it and what your customers are searching for.Imagine you’re a photographer, in Sydney, who specialises in business / corporate work. It’s a logical step to make sure that the web page might be set-up up a little something like this:URL: www.example.com.au/business-photographer-sydney
   Title: Business & Corporate Photographer
   Headings: Meet Joe B, Sydney’s busiest corporate photographer

2. Make the web page awesome. The better the page is, the fewer bounces, the fewer people that navigate away, the longer people spend on it or the more positive actions people make, like email or read blog. All of these are positive ranking signals for SEO.

3. Make sure the page is responsive in mobile, loads quickly and offers a good user experience. Google recently rolled out its ‘mobile first’ index meaning that it heavily favours websites which offer a great mobile user experience. Luckily, at The Spotted Dog, we’ll take care of this for you as standard.

4. Create great content that’s comprehensive, useful, enjoyable, sharable, linkable and worthwhile. Take our example above – Joe B – the photographer. If his web page just had 1 paragraph about him, then that’s not really going to help many people.What if his page had lots of great content that was useful?

• Inspirational ideas for business website photography.
• Examples of professional portraits.
• What you should do to make your LinkedIn photo stand out.
• How to prepare for your headshot photo.Comprehensive and useful content is a very strong ranking signal. If you’re not much of a writer, it’s worth considering a copywriter.

5. Proudly display your reviews and testimonials on a dedicated page. People love reading reviews and checking out a company or brand’s reputation. So, if you have a lot of good reviews these can certainly help with your conversion rates. But, the positive action people take to navigate there, the ‘click’ and the extra page view is a strong ranking signal.

6. And finally, create some links to other high quality websites. Google rewards websites that offer high quality, useful and relevant links to help a user continue their journey.

So, there you have it. 6 steps to great SEO without the need to contact an SEO agency. And if we’re building your website, we’ll do some of these naturally.