Morgan and I will be celebrating our 8th wedding anniversary on the 1st of October and to celebrate such a milestone we thought we’d share eight of our favourite beginner SEO basics.
SEO is in fact a lot like marriage.
Both SEO and a marriage require long-term commitment, trust, consistency, and adaptability. Just as partners work together in a marriage, SEO involves a collaborative effort between your website and search engines. By understanding these parallels, you can approach SEO with a strategic and committed mindset, leading to long-term success.
So after 14 years working in SEO and 8 years in marriage, here are our top beginner SEO tips to get your Australian small business the happily ever after it deserves:
Our top 8 beginner SEO tips:
Set up Google Analytics
There is no point in working on your SEO unless you can gather data and monitor the impact of your changes. Google Analytics is not only good for your SEO, but it helps you understand how your website is functioning and performing. You will be able to see how your website visitors find your website, what pages they are looking at and how they are engaging with your website – to name just a few of the juicy details you can find within the tool.
Get started with Google Analytics here.
Set up Google Search Console
Google Search Console provides data and information directly from Google about how your organic search is performing. Within this free SEO tool you can see what people are typing into Google to trigger your website to show and click on it. You can check on any issues Google might have with your pages and you can even see things like backlinks pointing to your website (e.g. links from other websites pointing to yours).
Get started with Google Search Console here.
Read Google’s SEO Starter Guide
When listening/reading about any SEO advice, I always recommend to only action advice from trusted sources. And when it comes to SEO advice, who is better to listen to than Google itself? Google has a lot of great resources out there focused on how you can make your content and website as SEO friendly as possible. One of my go-to resources that I recommend to SEO beginners is the Google Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide.
Create your free Google Business Profile
It’s free and it gains you more exposure through Google – which is why we highly recommend that all Australian small businesses should set up your Google Business Profile. If you have a bricks and mortar location which customers visit then showing on Google Maps should be essential. For other businesses which are more online, like our SEO small business, then a GBP is great to help boost your reputation. GBP’s are great for your reputation as they show when people Google your business name and it can be a hub for collecting positive reviews about your business.
We are so happy with the vibe and reputation building our listing does for our small biz:
Review your website on both desktop AND mobile
We recently took on a new client, who had no idea that on mobile it was impossible to submit their contact form. This is obviously a big barrier to conversion and definitely not great for user-experience. Therefore we highly recommend regularly reviewing how your website performs and functions on both desktop and mobile devices.
A cool tool we use to do this easily is a browser called Blisk. With Blisk you can see side by side how your website performs on mobile and desktop. Plus we find it great for reviewing the search results too – simply go to Google, type in your target keyword and take a look how the desktop vs. mobile search results look.
Google your target keywords
Carrying on from the above tip – Google your target keywords regularly. Understanding what and who shows up for the keywords that you want to be found for is essential to improving your keyword positions.
We have wrote a great post on doing SEO keyword research however also pay close attention to the keywords showing up in your Google Search Console account because if you are already getting impressions/clicks for certain keyword variations, then it’s going to be easier to improve rankings on those than a completely new keyword.
Use target keywords in your metadata
Your SEO metadata, aka your SEO title tag and meta description are soooo important. In fact I wrote an article on just how important your SEO title tags are here and how to get them right.
Your target keyword should be as close to the front of your SEO title tag as possible and I find it is also handy to mention it in your meta description. Although do note that meta descriptions aren’t used by Google for ranking, they are there purely to entice people to click through.
Feel free to use our handy Free Google Snippet Preview Tool to ensure your metadata is the right length and in tip top shape. I also like to recommend you do a Site search on Google to see how your snippets are looking, e.g. type into Google: site:yourdomain.com.au
Useful, helpful, relevant and unique content
We all know the internet is so FULL of content, so to stand out to Google and potential customers it is essential that all the content on your website is:
- Useful
- Helpful
- Relevant
- Unique
Let’s be honest here, there is no point writing a blog post on how to boil an egg. It’s been done, and those websites showing for the search are high quality and relevant. However something like “Boiled egg craft ideas for toddlers” might be easier for your online baby shop to rank for + it is relevant and if you can find a further unique angle on it which people are searching for, then you’re winning.
I know with the rise of AI and programs like Chat GPT and Gemini it means creating content is so much easier – but be careful here. You can still use AI to help you, but it needs a human touch too. Take a read of our Can I use ChatGPT, Gemini & AI for SEO articles? blog for more info.
So there you have it. These are our 8 top beginner SEO tips to help you get your brand and website in front of the right eyes online.
And just remember: SEO and marriage require patience and persistence to achieve long-term success.
