tiny steps make a big difference

Take charge of your SEO

Take Charge of Your SEO - Ruffle Mentoring

“No website can stand without a strong backbone. And that backbone is technical SEO” – Neil Patel

I’ve spoken to many female coaches of late about their online presence and what they find challenging. For so many it’s finding the time to keep their website up-to-date with content, images, blogs etc. I get it! It takes time. Especially if it isn’t in your wheelhouse. But by taking charge of your SEO you will drive much more traffic to your site.

Unfortunately, many female coaches don’t understand the importance of keeping their website content updated and how it helps to increase their Google ranking.

The big elephant in the room however, is SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). When I mention the ‘S’ word eyes glaze over! Can you relate!

It might not be as scary as your think to make some simple changes. And who knows… you might begin to enjoy it.

What is SEO Exactly?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It’s a tool, that when utilised well, increases the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. This means that when someone is searching on a term or product ‘up you pop’!

How does this happen? Well, whatever search engine you use whether it’s Google, Bing, Yahoo etc, they all have their own crawlers, or spiders (no… not the hairy, scary type!). These crawlers scour the internet to find new web pages and they add these to their index which records all the pages it has crawled. You want to be part of this! And you do this by taking charge of your SEO.

Many women don’t realise that their website already has powerful built-in SEO tools and functionality that can help them optimise pages and content for search engines. And just doing a few small steps can make the world of difference. Easy, Peasy!

Why is SEO so Important?

As I’ve mentioned above, good SEO increases your visibility and helps your ranking. This means your website appears in more searches and drives organic traffic to your site. Let’s face it, who goes past page 1 or 2 when searching for a product or service. 

It’s one thing to have a website built. However, unless you do the necessary work, you might be buried in page 5 onwards and very hard to find. To ensure your website shows up in search results, the pages must be optimised as you really want them to be picked up when crawled and indexed.

So to summarise, when someone enters the specifics of a product or service into the search bar, the search engine they are using will trawl through that index to identify the pages that relate to their query. It will offer them in order of relevance to the query and these will be the links that appear for them to choose from.

Here’s 5 tips to help you to get in the game.

1. Don't Google Yourself!

Many women make this mistake. When you search your business from your computer or device, the search engine you are using recognises you and will show you on Page 1 or 2. Plus it knows you’re a fan of your site as you go there often 🙂

Why is this? Well, search engines are great at recording your habits by using Cookies. This is helpful as it remembers your interests, online habits, and pages can load faster. However, on the flip side, it will not give you a true reflection of your business ranking and may leave you with a false sense of how easy you are to find.

You can try clearing your cache and search history. This may help a little but may still not give you a true reflection of your ranking.

Another trick is to open a ‘new private window’ or ‘new incognito window’. You can do this by right-clicking on your browser icon on the bottom tool bar. This may block your search engine from seeing your search history and give you a truer idea of where your site ranks.

2. Understand what SEO software you have

By going in to the back-end of your website, you can familiarise yourself with what SEO software your website provides. One of the most popular if you have a WordPress site is Yoast SEO. It’s simple to learn some easy steps to implement to go from a red ‘unhappy face’ to a green ‘happy face’! So you can start to take charge of your SEO today!

Red & Green SEO Faces - Ruffle Mentoring

3. Learn the Lingo!

When you are writing content for a Blog or a product/service page there are certain Do’s and Don’ts. They aren’t hard, but so very effective and are important in improving readability and SEO content quality.

Here’s a couple of simple things you can start to do.

Transition Words

Trust me. Once you start to play with transition words, it actually can be fun striving for that green ‘happy face’.

So when you are writing your content, keep in mind that you want your words and sentences to flow. Transition words are a great tool in creating this bridge and Google loves them!

Yoast provides a great document outlining lots of transition word and phrase ideas. But let me give you a few ideas to get started:

Single Words = accordingly, additionally, basically, besides, conversely…

Phrases = even more so, by comparison, for the purpose of, given these points, on the whole…

You get the idea! Super easy hey?

Let’s look at this sentence and see how adding ‘as a result’ as a transition word connects the two sentences.

“I studied so much harder for my exams. As a result, I passed with flying colours.”

Passive Words

In the world of SEO, passive voice is frowned upon. Google loves active words. We can write passively without giving it any thought. But once you put your focus on it, you begin to pick yourself up when being passive.

Check out the example below going from passive to active language.

A book is bought by me —- I bought a book.
A book is being bought by me —- I am buying a book.
A book has been bought by me —- I have bought a book.

Help is at Hand

We realise that to take charge of your SEO is an area so many women struggle with. So watch this space for more information and our upcoming book which will go into loads more detail.

And remember… you are not alone. Karyn and I and our wonderful team of mentors and coaches are here to support you.

So give it a go and I’d love to hear if you achieve a green happy face!

Julie Gabrielson – Co founder

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