Search engine optimization for your website is a critical step to getting your business in front of new clients. For a Sunshine Coast website SEO campaign there are three major steps that you need to take.
First of all, before starting on an SEO campaign, you need to decide what you want to be found for. Your business name is probably unique, so that’s an easy way to get found. But if someone is searching for your business name, then they already know about you. What you want instead is to be found by new people who don’t already know who you are.
That’s where an SEO campaign comes in. A website SEO campaign helps you be found by potential clients who need the service you offer, but don’t know who they want to buy from yet.
Brainstorming search terms for your Sunshine Coast website SEO campaign
With your business name in the centre, start a mindmap of what you offer to clients. Branch out into the location you work in, styles or formats of work you deliver, and helpful information that clients would look for in your niche.
Each of these ideas is a new in-road to your business. Think of the questions that people Google that you can answer with your business. Then plan to answer those questions.
Choose the main thing that you want to be found for. Usually this is a combination of the location you work in and the main kind of thing you do:
- Brisbane yoga studio
- Gympie wedding cake designer
- Sunshine Coast web design
Can you see how I am using this strategy in this article? I offer Sunshine Coast website SEO work, and so I am using that term in this article to help new clients find me and the work that I do.
Planning your Sunshine Coast website SEO campaign in three steps
With your keywords in hand, you’ve got three big tasks ahead of you: optimise on-page content, create new content on your site, and create new content off your site (on other people’s sites!).
Step 1 of your SEO campaign: Optimise on-page content
This is the quickest and easiest part of SEO. Optimising your on-page content should always be your first step. Find your website’s SEO tool (e.g. Yoast on your WordPress website), and follow the prompts to complete your general SEO setup. Then, you need to optimise each page of your site. Some website builders make this easier than others. If you can’t find the tool on your site: reach out. I can help you.
Optimising each page includes choosing the right title, including the keywords across the page, adding alt tags and captions to your photos on the page, etc. You’ll need to optimize your home page, contact page, portfolio page, about page, etc. Use your main SEO key phrase for your homepage, and a different variation of it for each separate page.
Images and site speed are a massive, critical part of your SEO too. I’ll just mention it here because that’s a whole other (several) articles in itself! The main thing to remember is that if your images are too large, they load slowly, which causes people to bounce off your site quickly, which is bad for SEO. Keep it light and fast and you’ll keep Google happy and impressed with your site.
Step 2 of your SEO campaign: Create on-site content
After you have your existing pages optimised, you’ve got to create new content to keep Google looking at you. Plan a calendar using your mindmap of topics. You want to use every article as a new doorway into your business world. What’s the handle that clients need to grab to open that door?
Each article must be optimized using the same SEO tool you used for your pages. The title and the first paragraph are the most important thing for SEO. If you are not using descriptive titles for your blog posts (that must include your SEO search term), you are wasting your time. The posts will not stand out to Google as relevant or useful.
For example, this is a bad SEO title: “Julie and John’s wedding cake”
Sure, this helps your existing clients Julie and John find the blog post about their wedding cake on your website. But Julie and John have already bought a wedding cake off you, and they (hopefully) don’t need a second one.
You need to use a title like: “Hand-painted wedding cake design for Sunshine Coast couple”
Now you might get that article found for someone who’s looking to buy a hand-painted wedding cake from a designer who works on the Sunshine Coast.
Creating on-site content is a critical part of improving your site’s SEO. It keeps search engines looking at your site because it is being regularly updated. It also keeps people on your site longer, which tells the search engines that your site is important and useful.
Part 3 of your SEO campaign: Create off-site content
The final part of building your SEO is getting search engines to see and trust the authority of your site. Authority means that your site has trustworthy information that answers people’s questions.
Build authority by trusted websites showing that you are also a trusted source. This means writing articles or content for other websites in your industry. These can backlink to your site, and then because you have useful and interesting information there (by completing Step 2!), your visitors remain, telling Google that you’re important and authoritative.
Research blogs and websites that align with your mindmap topics. Write a personalized, thoughtful, specific, researched article pitch, asking to blog on their website. Do not spam websites asking to guest post with a generic email. It will be ignored.
Write the article, deliver it on time, and repeat! Over time, this is how you build up the authority of your website in search engines’ eyes.
Working on your Sunshine Coast website SEO campaign is a long-term investment
If you’re a photographer, check out this article on Photofocus. It will help you with tips that are more specific to photography websites. For writers, I did a reel on this topic that you’ll find more specific to being a genre author.
Building your website’s SEO is a long-term project, and a long-term investment. It can’t be done overnight, even if you had all the time in the world right now. It takes time for search engines to trust the authority and longevity of your site.
Any work that you do on your SEO is an investment that lasts and lasts. Blog posts don’t disappear into the black hole of the algorithm like social media posts do. You can keep updating and revising posts over the years, refreshing them, and keeping people coming back to your site over and over. It’s time well spent!
If you need help with your SEO strategy – reach out! I’d love to help you.