Site review – getting the basics right

After a fantastic SEO con, a car drive I’ll never do again, multiple flights, and a massive case of the flu, I’m back at work now looking at the rankings on one site using Shopify. I’m constantly seeing people having the same problems on this site and others like it. Fixing the simplest things can increase your Google rankings considerably, so work on them before looking into more elaborate fixes.

Having a great looking site with a large picture filling the top of the page might seem attractive, but it’s not necessarily great for conversion. Take a look at the site in text-only mode to see it how Google sees it. Looking at this site, I saw that there was no information on the shop itself. This is crucial for getting a higher ranking. Your page title should include information about the site, as well as the keyword string you’re trying to rank for. Your metadata is your sales pitch; make it the most enticing sentence you can come up with. Looking further into the site, I found repeating <h2> tags that do absolutely nothing for rankings and are just a waste of Google’s time. It it’s not designed to bring someone onto your site, get rid of it!

Another thing you can do to increase your site rankings is to write a blog. Create an editorial calendar so you have a logical list of blog post titles, and write something every week. Do 500 or even 300 words each time, just to get Google to crawl you again. Check your page speed at Google to see if it’s loading slowly. Most times the size of your pictures will be the culprit, so resize them so optimize those images for quicker loading. Finally, have a keyword string in mind that you want to rank for, and feature it wherever you can.

Jim Stewart is a leading expert in search engine optimisation. His business StewArt Media has worked with clients including Mars, M2 and the City of Melbourne.