SEO GUIDE

GETTING STARTED
Search Engine Optimisation is seen a bit of an enigma and how Search
Engines rank sites can at times be a closely guarded secret. Although
challenging, it’s hardly impossible to get your site to number one in the listings.

This guide is based on our experience of what works and guidelines accepted across
the Internet on improving your website ranking. A lot of it we’ve learnt and applied
from working on our own website and feedback from clients like you.

These days the majority of websites are built around a content management system
or CMS, allowing the website author to update their website instantly and continuously.
This is great news for Search Engines as websites with a CMS can be constantly changed
to improve their search engine rankings. Through this guide we make reference to
‘The Toolkit’, our purpose built CMS, which can make all the necessary changes to a
website to improve it’s ranking.

You’re going to have to work hard to optimise your site for Search Engines. You may
not see results for months, and you’re going to want to monitor your results in case Rome wasn’t built in a day
you need to adjust them further. All websites need both online and offline marketing One last thing. We’ve already said that it’s going to take a bit of time to optimise your site.
if they’re going to be successful, not just SEO, however optimising your site is It’s also going to take a bit of time before you see results. Search Engine Optimisation
incredibly easy and a great starting point. (SEO) is something in which you need to invest time and effort. No one really knows how
often a search engine will visit your site, we can’t tell you how long it will be till your hard
The number one thing you have to do is make sure your site content is focused on
work pays off. But it will pay off.
the keywords you wish to rank highly on in Search Engine result pages. It’s going to
take a bit of time but with The Toolkit and the advice and guidance of our Support Search Engines reward sites that have been around longer than others, as that makes
Team you have everything you need to get started. your site seem more credible, and there is nothing like good old fashioned marketing to
support your credibility. Make sure your website address is on all of your other publicity
We’re going to use our website, https://www.toolkitwebsites.co.uk/ as an
material, (headed paper, business cards, van etc..), that it’s on any directory listings and
example to demonstrate how you can use The Toolkit to optimise your own website.
do consider some other form of online advertising, either banner ads or Pay Per Click like
For more specialist help we can recommend a fantastic SEO company we’ve Google Ad words. For more information on what you can do away from your website to
worked with for years who have proven results with our clients using our Toolkit. help your Search Engine positions, go to https://www.toolkitsupport.uk/website-success.

02380 633 644 | [email protected]

 FINDING YOUR KEYWORDS
So, you have a website. You’re going to want two things for it:

• Listed in the major Search Engines

• Ranked highly for your chosen keywords

To achieve this, you need to know what your keywords are.

What is a keyword?
These are the words or phrases your website should appear under when someone
searches using a search engine. What search terms do you want your site to appear under?
How would people describe what your business does in as few words as possible?
Phrases like this have fewer results because they’re more focussed
The more specific, the better. Looking at Toolkit Websites, www.toolktiwebsites.co.uk,
and less competitive, meaning our site would be more likely to score
there are a number of keywords to describe our business:
highly under these keywords.

Websites, Web Design, Website Services, Bespoke Website Designers Therefore in this example, we’ll focus on these more detailed keywords
for the optimisation process.
See how many results each of these return in Google:

Professional Web Design: 4,250,000,000 How many keywords?

Web Design: 9,600,000,000
This depends on whom you talk to! Some people say 5 really focussed keyword
Website Services: 8,160,000,000
phrases; others say 15-20.
Bespoke Website Designers: 13,000,000
Keywords also need to vary from page to page, reflecting on the content of each
These are pretty huge numbers, right? If you use general keywords like these,
page specifically. On our website, our Portfolio page keywords will differ from
the chances of your website being noticed is pretty slim! Using 2 or 3 word phrases
those on our About page, but will still be within the theme of Web Design.
improves your chances as they will attract fewer companies, and you can tailor them
to be specific to your business. Let’s try a few more phrases for Toolkit Websites: Now you know a bit more about keywords, you need to work our what yours
are. Don’t worry if you’re not 100% sure as Google have a handy tool you can
Web Design Hampshire: 79,400,000
use to generate keywords for you:
Website Designers in Southampton: 35,700,000
Bespoke Web Design Agency Hampshire: 12,000,000 https://ads.google.com/intl/en_uk/home/tools/keyword-planner/

02380 633 644 | [email protected]

 APPLYING YOUR KEYWORDS
Now you’ve got your keyword phrases, you need to know where the Search
Engines are looking for them. The answer is: across your whole website!

Common places Keywords can be added:

• Web address, eg toolkitwebsites.co.uk
• Page Titles, eg Web Design Hampshire
• Page aliases, eg toolkitwebsites.co.uk/web-design-hampshire
• Meta descriptions on your pages
• Links on your pages
• Images on your page, ie. the name of the image, the caption and the alt-tag
• Website content

Use The Toolkit to make sure all of the above areas on your website contain your
specific keywords & phrases. If you’re unsure, our Support Team can help you
access each of the above listed elements.

Even though nothing can guarantee you success in the Search Engines, by adding
keywords and phrases all over your website you give yourself the best chance
of being ranked for the searches your clients will use!

02380 633 644 | [email protected]

 GET YOUR SITE IN THE SEARCH ENGINES
As standard, when publishing your website we submit it to Bing and provide a
guide on how to submit to Google through their Search Console, but it can take
the Search Engines anywhere between days and months to actually index your
website after submission.

To help speed this up and for more control over how the search engines see
your website, we recommend setting up Webmaster Tools:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home
https://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster

We’d also recommend adding your site to local directories. You can try
business-based directories but it’s important to check them out before your
sign up as things like Link Farms are considered really disreputable.

Find our recommended directories here:

https://www.toolkitsupport.uk/recommended-directories

Local Business Results

Add your business and site to Google My Business, which is completely free:

https://www.google.com/business/
After registering with all of the above, you will hopefully be picked up by the Search
Google My Business lists your website when people are searching for you business,
Engines. The longer your site is around, the better it will do! Search Engines treat older
or businesses like yours, on Google Searches or Maps.
sites as having more authority. This is referred to what’s known as ‘Domain Authority’.
For businesses that benefit from customers finding their locations, such as retail
A domain that’s been active for 4 years is much more popular with Search Engines
outlets or restaurants, Google My Business is a fantastic place as it’ll put you at
than one that’s recently been registered. Using an older domain for your website
the top of search purely because you’re the best placed company for the
can give you a huge advantage when trying to push up the Search Engines.
Google-User’s search.

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 USE THE TOOLKIT TO OPTIMISE YOUR SITE
Got your keywords to hand? Great! Now we can use these to optimise your site for a. Your Website Address
Search Engines using the Toolkit’s SEO features. Having your keywords in your domain name can help. If you’re a plumber in

The Toolkit makes sure that your keywords are used appropriately and consistently Yorkshire, you may wish to consider the domain plumberinyorkshire.co.uk

to help Search Engines find the information. It makes no sense to just dump a list of instead of your company-name.co.uk

keywords on your site in any old place. Let’s use The Toolkit to do this properly! We can register many different types of domains. See them all here:

Remember to work out individual page keywords and generic ones for your site overall! https://www.toolkitsupport.uk/domain-registrations

At the beginning of this document we gave you a list of places where Search b. Page Titles
Engines look for your keywords. Need a recap? Here they are again:
Your page titles also need to include relevant keywords. Turning to our website, one
• Web address, eg toolkitwebsites.co.uk of the keyword phrases for Toolkit Websites is ‘Web Design Hampshire’. So what’s the
• Page Titles, eg Web Design Hampshire title for our page about web design in Hampshire? “Web Design Hampshire” of course!
• Page aliases, eg toolkitwebsites.co.uk/web-design-hampshire
You should choose titles that describe your pages and include your main keywords.
• Meta descriptions on your pages
The Toolkit gives you control over both the main site title and the individual page titles:
• Links on your pages
• Images on your page, ie. the name of the image, the caption and the alt-tag https://www.toolkitsupport.uk/how-to-change-a-page-name
• Website content

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 USE THE TOOLKIT TO OPTIMISE YOUR SITE
c. Page Aliases e. Links on your pages
For the same page, what do you think we’ve set the alias to be? You’re absolutely The search engines can read every link on your page too, so it’s good if the text
right! It’s / web-design-hampshire that is attached to these links is based on your keywords too.

If you’re a plumber in Yorkshire and you have a page for showcasing your services, When linking to another webpage, you’ll probably be linking some text. Therefore,
instead of using the alias / services, you should use / plumbing-services-yorkshire make sure the link text is relevant to your keywords.

Find out how to change your page’s alias here: If you’re linking to an anchor on your website, make sure the anchor name contains
a keyword / phrase.
https://www.toolkitsupport.uk/how-to-change-a-page-alias
Don’t go overboard with the internal links as more than 15 – 20 will make Search
d. Meta Description Engines think you’re a link spammer, but 3 – 4 links on each page that point to
other pages on your website with keyword based text should be enough.
This is the short description of your site for the search engines. It’s the
summary that appears under a site name in a listing of search results. Make Find out how to add a link on your website:
sure yours is keyword rich and relevant to your business.
https://www.toolkitsupport.uk/how-to-add-a-link
The Meta Description for toolkitwebsites.co.uk is:

“Top UK website design company in Hampshire. Experienced website designers f. Images

providing bespoke web design for small businesses, with guaranteed 5-star Search Engines can’t actually see images, so they look for behind-the-scenes
passionate service provided at all times. Find out how we can help you design information that tells them what the image is of.
the perfect brochure-style website for your business.”
You can make sure that images count towards your SEO by adding alternative text to
Keep your meta description short but fill it with the services you provide in your images, so that when a Search Engine sees an image it has a textual description of
the areas in which you work. You can also optimise individual page meta the image. It makes sense to make sure that the alternative text includes some keywords.
descriptions on your site by using the Toolkit:
It’s also good SEO practice to make sure that you don’t put any useful text in an image
https://www.toolkitsupport.uk/how-to-add-keywords-and-meta-descriptions itself (ie photoshopped in) as search engines can’t see the content of those visual
elements. It’s no good if the only place your keyword phrases appear in a banner
image on your homepage. Replicate any text that’s in existing banners, images or
Javascript animations elsewhere on your site as actual text.

02380 633 644 | [email protected]

 USE THE TOOLKIT TO OPTIMISE YOUR SITE
g. Your Website Text Google will never show your website in the results for ‘Plumber in Yorkshire’ if you’re

Your website copy is your number one friend when it comes to SEO. not using any of these words, either individually or as a phrase, on your website.

Don’t just stick a huge paragraph that lists your keywords on the site, as once a To be considered a trustworthy and important site by Google, you need to provide

Search Engine has found you, actual people will be reading it! Make sure your text relevant information about your industry as ‘Industry news’ so to speak.

content makes sense to humans whilst including your keywords. Articles on the latest events in your sector will be full of useful keywords from an SEO

Your text needs to be relevant, and fit with the message of the page. perspective, and may generate inbound links if they’re picked up by other sites as being
useful. You can try the same thing by writing articles or guides on products and services
Let’s look at this in more detail. On our Web Design Hampshire page, we’ve made if you’re in a slower paced sector where there isn’t often a lot of news.
sure our keyword phrases are flowing naturally through the content.
For example, a firm of solicitors could write an article on why making a will is important
For the keyword phrase ‘Web Design Hampshire’, see a break down of how often and how to go about it. This would not only be useful to their existing and prospective
derivatives or parts of this phrase appear here: customers, it provides a very nice selling opportunity to link to their will writing service.

Web Design: 12
Design: 21
Hampshire: 19

Web Design Hampshire: 1

See this for yourself here:

https://www.toolkitwebsites.co.uk/web-design-hampshire

02380 633 644 | [email protected]

 SOCIAL MEDIA & BLOGGING
Industry News or Industry related articles brings us onto our next area of
advice: Blogging and Social Media.

A great way to achieve a ‘Latest News’ section on your website is with the Toolkit
Blog. This doesn’t eat into your page allowance and allows for quick and easy
article posting. See more on this service here:

https://www.toolkitsupport.uk/blog-service

Social Media has become more important than ever. Search Engines now expect
to see Facebook, Twitter, Google + and even a Blog on your website when they
come crawling.

They believe this is the best way to see your most up to date content and they’re
right. Social Media is designed to show any and all up to the minute comments,
posts, tweets, responses etc. and it is this content Search Engines are now most
interested in. Your Social Media accounts will tell Google how invested you are by
the amount your interacting and engaging with audiences on Social Media.

By responding to consumers on Social Media you are indirectly telling Search

Engines you are up to date, liked and most importantly, showing customers that
they can contact you through more than just the phone number on your website.
Social Media is free to set up and can be linked to from your website really easily.

Push your Social Media accounts to your customer base and see the benefits
in the Search Engines!

02380 633 644 | [email protected]

 WHAT ARE SEARCH ENGINES LOOKING FOR?
Normally keeping their cards close to their chest, there are a few areas Google 2. SSL (secure socket layer):
have openly announced that they look for in their ranking algorithm:
Securing the data submitted through your website is now more important than
ever and Google are backing that.
1. Mobile Friendly:
Not sure if your website’s mobile friendly? Use Google’s free test: They’re looking to see a more secure web and are therefore rewarding websites
with SSL in the rankings, so adding SSL to your website is a quick and great way
https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly to help you SEO.

Nowadays, nearly everyone has a smartphone. In fact, according to Google’s

Speak to our Support Team about getting SSL added to your website as soon as
own data, more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers
possible! We can have it created, implemented and tested within 3 working
in many countries.
days.
Because of this, Google have released their Mobile-First index to further reward
Mobile Websites. This means Google have started looking at mobile & responsive 3. Page Speed:
content before desktop.
In July 2018, Google announced a new ranking algorithm designed for mobile
For years now we’ve promoted the benefits of having a Mobile Friendly website, search called ‘Speed Update’. Although rumoured to only impact a small
so if your website isn’t currently Mobile Friendly but you’re looking to improve percentage of queries, pages that deliver the slowest of experiences will be
affected by the update.
your SEO, you need to make that change.

Speak to our Team today about how to achieve a mobile friendly website We’d recommend running a test of your pages using Google’s PageSpeed
on 02380 633 644 Insights:

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

The most common elements that slow a page down are un-optimised images,
Social Media feeds and embedded videos. To help your page speed, and
therefore your SEO, you may wish to replace the images in your Toolkit with
optimised versions and remove any social feeds or videos from your site on
small screen sizes.

02380 633 644 | [email protected]

 CONCLUSION
So this is the end! We said at the beginning that SEO is a bit of an enigma and this guide by no
means is the be all and end all. Hopefully it’s provided you with some useful tips.

Remember that optimising your site takes time and won’t show instant results. It’s definitely a
marathon rather than a sprint, but if you’re wiling to put the effort in, your site will eventually show up!

Finally, to prove that it actually works, here are the rankings of our very own website on Google:

“bespokewebsiteHampshire” – 2nd out of 1,550,000 results

“Professional web design”– 1st out of 3,910,000,000 results

“Southampton professionalwebsitedesigner”– 1st out of 23,500,000 results

Results correct as of August 2021.

02380 633 644 | [email protected]