Six months ago, I entered the marketing world as a slightly terrified graduate who thought engagement was something that happens before a wedding and long-tail was a type of monkey. These days, I like to think I’m a bit of a copywriting whizz (on a good day). If, like me, you’ve entered your first SEO copywriting role with little marketing experience, I’m here to help. I spend an inordinate proportion of my life putting words onto paper and have picked up some tips along the way. 

So, without further ado, let’s get into the SEO copywriting lessons I’ve learnt in my first six months that’ll make your content impress your manager and Google.

1. SEO copywriting is unlike anything else you’ll have ever written

Something I gathered days, if not hours, into my new role is that SEO copywriting is unlike anything you’ll have ever written. It’s drastically different from academic writing and pretty dissimilar to press releases and journalistic style content. It requires a far more analytical approach and is definitely a skill that has to be developed. But I think, 6 months in, I’m getting there… just.

It will all feel like a foreign language at first, and you’ll spend many hours removing jargon and complex sentence structures. But practice makes perfect, and it’s crazy how quickly SEO copywriting becomes second nature.

2. It’s all about the prep

There’s a lot more to copywriting than just getting the words down. A vast proportion of my time is spent doing the necessary research required for SEO content – scouring search volumes, analysing the SERPs, determining user intent, and deciding on headings and subheadings. 

Take your time for keyword research and SERP analysis before you even think about writing. You need to get inside the target users’ heads – what are they searching for and what are they clicking on? What do I need to address to make sure I’m producing genuinely useful content that answers their queries? It can be easy in the content world to lose track of what really matters – the customers and what they need. Remember that blogs aren’t just for brand awareness, and product descriptions are more than just a keyword dump. 

3. Copywriting is hard and some days it just won’t happen

SEO copywriting is tricky! Alongside the analytical skills required in the research process, the actual writing requires a lot of creativity – and it’s impossible for us to be creative 24/7. Every day will be different. Some days I can knock up a thousand words in an hour, and on others it will take me all day to get a mere couple of hundred out.

On those days, don’t push it – move over to research tasks and leave the more creatively demanding work for another day. It’s a good idea to take this into account when structuring your time. Give yourself plenty of time for a big piece of writing, to allow for those writer’s block days where it’s just not flowing.

4. Write for humans

When you do get down to the actual writing, write for humans. I know everyone says it but it’s so important if you want to produce content that’s engaging and SEO-effective.

Ask yourself, would you enjoy reading this piece of content? Would you find it useful? Would your best friend? It’s easy to get lost in all the technical details of keyword research and search volumes but at the end of the day, what is your average Joe going to want to read? Write for humans and Google will reward you as a side effect.

Something I learnt that really stuck with me is that the average reading age in the UK is 9! And remember that your audience will have different levels of reading ability – ensuring that your content is accessible is crucial. Not everyone is a copywriter like you; in fact, the vast majority won’t have read a book in the last year. As much as it’s fun to add in niche vocab and fun sentence structures, your content needs to be digestible and readable. Use short words, sentences, and paragraphs and save the rambles for your Instagram captions.

5. Make use of AI! (It’s not out to steal your job)

I’ll admit, I used to be a real ChatGPT hater – rolling my eyes when people raved about what it could do. “There’s no way writing can be automated, and why should it be?” But I confess, it’s been growing on me. AI can be super useful as a little personal assistant. It’s great for giving you alternative words or phrases if you can’t remember exactly what you’re after – and super useful if you need a more concise header.

However, be careful not to rely on it too much! The capabilities of these tools may well be very impressive but do not rely solely on AI to write your copy – as tempting as it might be. Everyone can see through it, and it will kill off your creativity; you got this job for a reason, keep exercising and developing that skill.

My favourite tools for SEO copywriting 

There are so many tools and software now for all things SEO and when you’re new to the scene it can be tricky to work out which to choose. Lucky for you, I’ve narrowed down my favourites over the last six months:

📍Ahrefs

A jack of all trades, Ahrefs should really be your go-to as an SEO copywriter. Keyword research, content gap analysis, user intent, it does it all.

📍AlsoAsked

You’ll have seen the ‘People Also Ask’ list that appears in Google’s search results – it shows you the, often amusing, top queries the population are asking. Well, AlsoAsked puts all that data in one place. You enter a topic or question and receive a full mind-map of the most asked queries. This is a goldmine for writing FAQ sections, coming up with headings, or simply to get a better sense of what the target audience is wanting to know.

📍Salient

This tool emulates Google, showing you what’s being picked up as the most important features of the page. It’s helpful to show you if your copy is successfully targeting the relevant topics, giving you a clue into how Google will rank it.

📍Grammarly

An absolute classic, and a must for copywriters. Add this extension to your browser and it will make sure every piece of work, every email, and every LinkedIn caption is error-free and perfectly punctuated. Because is there anything more icky than a copywriter with incorrect grammar?

📍Gemini

ChatGPT’s lesser known cousin, Gemini is Google’s own AI assistant and I find it to be a better alternative. One thing it’s great for is proofing. Simply insert your piece of work and it shows you any errors, places for improvement and even some ‘what went wells’. Got to love some validation from a chatbot. 

How to upskill in SEO copywriting

If you’re new to marketing and SEO, you’ll want to be catching up fast. There’s a lot to learn so here’s how I got up to speed:

> Consume lots of writing, and make it good writing. Follow copywriters on LinkedIn, subscribe to newsletters, rediscover the joy of reading that got sidelined at university. If you want to write great content, you need to read a lot of great content.

> Attend webinars and marketing events. There’s so much going on, particularly here in Manchester, and many of these events are free! There’s no one better to learn from than the leaders in our industry – and the free pizza never goes amiss.

> Want to feel slightly more productive on your commute? Choose an educational podcast rather than your favourite Made in Chelsea Stars. Here are some of my faves:

• ‘Always Take Notes’ = each episode interviews a diverse range of established novelists, journalists and publishers. They have fascinating conversations and it’s a great place to mine writing tips and seek inspiration.

• ‘MozPod’ = with the tagline ‘learn best practices from real SEOs’ this is a podcast focused on sharing lessons from SEO experts.

• ‘Girls in Marketing’ =  a fun one for women new to the industry, offering advice to help you get started.

My top tips for SEO Copywriting

I’ll finish with some quick-fire top tips to send you on your way into the world of SEO copy:

1. Want to be a good copywriter? Competitor analysis is essential. I spend so much time on competitor sites I’m probably responsible for half of their page views – try to really work out why they’re ranking and how you can do the same but better.

2. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. If you haven’t been given a style guide by a client, ask! This will save you all time in the long-run.

3. Study the client’s work closely, immerse yourself in it and know their tone of voice inside and out. You need to be able to mimic their style exactly, no matter how niche it may be. I like to make a document of ‘stock phrases’ and general comments on tone for each client, to refer back to every time I write.

4. You will receive criticism, and some of it might hurt, but try to reframe it as a learning opportunity. It’s easy to take feedback on our writing personally but just see it as a chance to improve and get closer to writing exactly what the client wants.

5. Sleep on it… then proof. For every piece of work, I’ll schedule a quick proof the morning after. With a fresh outlook I’m able to spot errors I completely overlooked the day before, and can often think of additional points to add.

So there we have it, the diary of an amateur copywriter who knows slightly more than she did six months ago. Hopefully these tips can help you to avoid the rookie mistakes and get you creating top-tier content.

Need some help with your SEO strategy? We’re happy to assist. Get in contact today to find out how we can help you improve your online visibility.

Did you know that 97% of users search online to find a local business? And that a huge 78% of these local searches result in an offline purchase? If your Manchester-based business isn’t optimised for local search, you could be missing out on a significant portion of potential customers.

But what is local SEO? This blog will delve into what it is and how it differs from your standard SEO practices. Put simply, local SEO is a targeted approach to search engine optimisation that improves your website’s visibility when people use search terms with local intent. E.g. ‘agencies near me’, ‘Manchester marketing firms’ etc. 

Local SEO is more important than ever and an essential tool enabling you to reach high-intent users and convert them into paying customers. Stay tuned for a run-down of what local SEO can do for your business and our tips and tricks to ensure you’re maximising its potential.

What Is Local SEO?

Through analysis of user behaviours, Google worked out that searches for certain businesses (like plumbers, restaurants, and yes – digital marketing agencies) are often local in nature. For this reason, search results now take location into account when you search for one of these ‘local terms’. You don’t even need to specify a location, Google’s clever algorithms sense what you’re after and show you the best utilities near you. But how can you make sure that Google sees your business as one of the ‘best’ in Manchester and puts it at the top of the SERPs? The answer is local SEO.

Local SEO goes beyond traditional SEO by focusing on optimising your online presence for a specific geographic location. It involves claiming and optimising your Google Business Profile listing, strategically using local keywords throughout your website content, and encouraging positive customer reviews. 

These steps send strong signals to search engines that your business caters to a specific area. The result? When people in your city or town search for products or services you offer, your business is more likely to appear prominently in search results, leading potential customers right to your doorstep. So, local SEO isn’t just about ranking well; it’s about attracting users who are actively looking for what you offer in their local area.

What Are The Benefits Of Local SEO?

By now it should be clear that local SEO is a powerful tool for driving sales and boosting your business. But let’s go over the three areas where local SEO can make the most significant impact.

Traffic and visibility

Local SEO done right will get your business seen by the right people at the right time. A robust strategy will significantly boost your visibility, attracting a flood of highly relevant local searches. This is because local SEO helps your business rank higher in search results for relevant local keywords – and this translates to more targeted traffic. 

Credibility

Building trust with potential customers is key to any business’s success, and local SEO plays a significant role in establishing your website’s credibility. An accurate Google Business Profile, and consistent contact details across your website create a sense of reliability for potential customers. Equally, local SEO’s emphasis on online reviews act as social proof – building trust and encouraging purchases.

Sales and revenue

Realistically, your number one priority is to get paying customers through the door (or new clients brought in). Local SEO is your key to achieving this; it’s a cost-effective way for your business to build trust, reach more customers and ultimately drive sales. 

Let’s face it, the whole point of getting more website traffic, being seen online, and building trust is to boost sales, right?  Ranking high in local searches puts your business in front of potential customers who are already interested and ready to buy what you offer.

Tips For Improving Local SEO For Your Manchester Business

🐝 Google Business Profile

The first step to improving your local SEO is setting up a Google  Business Profile. This is a free tool that lets you manage how you’ll appear in Google Searches and Google Maps. Within this profile, you can highlight good reviews, include contact details and directions to your business, and link to key pages on your website. If a user searches for your business, this profile will appear on the right-hand side and it’s up to you to make sure they’ll want to click through.

🐝 Google Map Pack

This is the term used to describe the real top spot in Google’s local search results. If a user makes a search with local intent, the first thing they see is a set of businesses and a map identifying their locations. This appears above the traditional search results and is reserved for the very best businesses. For example, if we were to search for recruitment agencies in Manchester, the map pack looks like this:

Under each business is a condensed version of their Google Business Profile, and this pack has become a key factor in consumers’ buying choices.

So, how can you utilise this? Well, to get into the map pack results make sure to:

>>Claim your Google Business Profile 

>>Generate authentic online reviews

>>Link-build (but more on this later)

🐝 Reviews

You’ll notice that the three agencies in the coveted spots above had a good review average. Reviews really are crucial because the more high-rated reviews, the more chance of appearing in front of your target users, and providing the credibility they need to press ‘buy’. You’ll know that it’s within our nature to trust something that’s been peer-reviewed. Good reviews give you that extra bit of confidence to purchase. 

So, how can you encourage reviews? You need to make it easy for the customer – include a link to your Google   Business Profile on your website and a ‘leave a review’ button on key landing pages. Plus, following up with your customers via email is a good idea, politely asking them to leave a review. It can also be good to add an incentive here, although note that Google’s policy states that you cannot pay for reviews.

🐝 Address / contact details included on website

Including your business’ address, phone number and email address on your website is an important element of local SEO for a few reasons:

🡺Consistent contact information in multiple places shows Google that you’re a legitimate local entity

🡺Including these details is a clear signal to Google that you’re a local business – this will improve your ranking for relevant local keywords

🡺Aside from anything else, it’s really useful for the customer! People need to be able to contact you quickly and easily. And, don’t forget that Google takes UX into account too. This is particularly important now that most searches happen on mobile devices – users want to be able to call a company to find out more with one click.

Many companies integrate this into the header or footer of their website so that it’s easily accessible.

🐝 Optimise on page content for Manchester-related searches

This simply includes carrying out some keyword research to see what your local customers are searching for, and then naturally implementing these terms. As well as using tools for this, think about putting yourself in the customers’ shoes. What would your ideal clients be looking for and what words would they be using to search?

Of course, remember that high quality, useful content is a top priority so make sure your pages still read naturally. But it can be good to include terms like ‘Manchester’ for example, in your page URLs, title tags, headings, and image alt tags.

🐝 Local link building

Link building, the process of gaining backlinks from other websites, plays a vital role in off-page SEO. These links act as endorsements, signifying to Google that your website is an authority. But did you know that it can be tailored to local SEO too? Look for ways to attract links from locally-focused websites and prioritise this in your Digital PR strategy.

Local news outlets, industry blogs within your area, and websites of local businesses can all be valuable sources of backlinks. Share stories with a local site or perhaps write a case study about a local client in exchange for a link from their website. This will all work to strengthen your local online presence, increasing visibility and conversions.

How Cedarwood Digital can help with your local SEO strategy

Local SEO is done best with the help of SEO professionals. Here at Cedarwood Digital, we have a track record of boosting business’ sales through local SEO. If you’re a local business in Manchester, we can help you with your strategy; get in touch today to see how we can help you thrive in the Manchester market.

2.71 billion people worldwide are expected to shop online in 2024. This is more than ever before, but with over 5.6 million merchants now active on Shopify, how can you get noticed? You’ll be happy to know that the answer is not spending hundreds of thousands on Google ads. With the right SEO strategy, you’ll have traffic flying in in no time. Stay tuned for our four ultimate tips to get visitors onto your e-commerce site.

1. Internal Linking

Internal linking refers to hyperlinks pointing from one page to another on the same website. When a user clicks on an internal link they are taken to a different page on your website – it’s as simple as that. For example, we often place internal links in our blogs to our case studies page so users can get a better understanding of our work. Or, more often than not, we’ll include an internal link to a topically relevant blog or service page to support the user journey and build topical relevance.

It has a whole host of benefits, helping to increase traffic, improve indexability, and boost sales. Internal linking is crucial for any website, but especially so for e-commerce sites. Let’s get more into why this is…

Why Is Internal Linking Important For E-commerce Sites?

Internal linking is a massive help when it comes to improving user experience. As a user yourself, think back to a recent experience with e-commerce. It may not even occur to you that online shopping is quite so easy (often too easy!) because of the ease of use provided by things like internal links. No one wants to be searching high and low for that red v-neck top they’re after. Internal linking greatly improves the site’s navigation and helps your customers move between pages. Of course, this is especially important for e-commerce websites which often have a vast number of product pages and category pages.

Just look at this screengrab from Next’s website; they stock over 10,000 women’s clothing items but their combination of image and textual internal links here makes things nice and easy for the user.

Internal linking doesn’t just  help out the user, it’s also super beneficial for search engine crawlers. Through internal links, Google can better understand the structure and hierarchy of your website and connect topically-related pages, helping the algorithm to discover and crawl each page. Why should you care about indexability? Well, the more pages crawled, the more traffic and potential conversions!

Another element contributing to getting those pages ranked is link equity. This term refers to the value passed between pages within a website. Essentially, internal linking spreads the love – ensuring that all those little product pages get the attention they deserve from search engines.

Lastly, internal linking can be deployed to highlight key features on an e-commerce website. I’m talking sales, promotions, reviews, new collections etc. With effective graphics and copy, these links will draw attention and prompt users to click through.

2. Content Marketing

When developing an SEO strategy for any domain, the importance of content cannot be underestimated. Get your content marketing right and the merits are endless: backlink potential, boosted traffic, increased click-through rates, improved customer experience – the list goes on.

If you’re dealing with an e-commerce site you should focus first and foremost on your product and category pages. These have the most impact on customer experience, and the most value for revenue. Despite this, many online stores tend to neglect these pages, adding minimal content because it is a time-consuming task for a big e-commerce site. 

However, prioritising your product and category page content is a great way to get a leg up against the competition. Researching and implementing your keywords  onto these pages is a hugely effective way to scale the SERPrankings. Below you’ll see the content on a product page from Hayes Garden World – who knew there was so much to write about a garden bench!

Once your product and category pages are updated and optimised with useful text and quality images, turn now to strategic content. This is your longer-form content such as buying guides and blog articles, covering topics like ‘how to use’ your product, or ‘aftercare for’ your product. 

This is a great place to target related long-tail keyword traffic for raising brand awareness; providing additional insight could also help to sway your customers’ buying decision. It showcases the site as an expert in its field which, if we consider Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines, cannot be overlooked! By developing this two-part content strategy you’ll successfully target different levels of the funnel and boost sales. To return to tip 1, strategic content is also a fab place to stick your internal links. Lure users in with helpful blog content then send them over to your key conversion pages.

As an example, here’s how we’ve been implementing industry blogs into New Millenia’s content strategy to target relevant long-tail keywords, and drive engagement that’s useful to their users.

3. Focus On User Experience

User experience is critical for e-commerce SEO because Google prioritises websites that offer a satisfying and accessible experience to users – leading to higher rankings and increased organic traffic. UX and SEO truly go hand-in-hand; here are a few boxes to tick to ensure users have the best time possible on your site.

• ☑️How is your loading speed holding up? You’ll know first hand that there’s nothing more infuriating than a slow-loading website – there are only so many hours in the day! To make sure users stay on your site once they’ve clicked through, improve your loading speed by optimising images or reducing code. For a more in-depth guide to help you brush up on technical SEO, head over to our ‘5 Steps For Conducting A Technical SEO Audit’.

• ☑️Does your website have a user-friendly navigation menu? This makes it easier for people to find what they’re looking for and helps Google out too.

• ☑️How does your site look on mobile? Google has been prioritising the mobile version of domains for indexing since 2019. This means your e-commerce website must be mobile-friendly to even think about ranking! 

4. Acquiring Backlinks To Deeper Pages

A final point is the importance of building links to your e-commerce site to help drive organic traffic. Digital PR links are recognised as a good indicator of your site’s trustworthiness, but we’re not just talking about links to your homepage – it’s really worthwhile to secure links to specific landing pages. Pick out key, high-return pages and develop a targeted digital PR campaign to help grow authority within these sections. This will boost the authority of the individual page and bring in more conversions over time. Plus you’ll benefit from link equity again here. The deeper page being linked to will receive a boost in authority, and this will then be passed to connecting pages. Looking for a few top tips to build natural backlinks? See our guide here.

Get Expert Help With Your E-commerce SEO

In the competitive landscape of e-commerce, where copious online stores will be offering similar products, enhancing your visibility in search results is critical. Cedarwood Digital is an award-winning e-commerce agency with extensive experience driving online traffic for large, and small, retailers. If you fancy a chat about our ecommerce SEO services please don’t hesitate to get in touch!

We consume and are surrounded by content every day in all forms – in fact, the average person now spends 7 hours a day engaging with content. A podcast to start the day, social media content on your commute, industry blogs to inform your work – it all adds up! It won’t surprise you to learn that online content consumption has more than doubled since the start of the pandemic, and it shows no signs of slowing. 

Accordingly, more companies are adopting content marketing strategies than ever before. Its ability to engage a target audience, and major role in search engine optimisation, gives it the capacity to generate high-quality leads. But with ‘content marketing’ now a catch-all term increasingly thrown around in the industry, what does it actually mean and how can you tangibly implement content into your digital marketing strategy?

This post will explain how content marketing is far more than just a trending buzz word. Executed correctly, it is one of the most pivotal elements of any SEO strategy, and the key to unlocking dominance in the SERPs and user conversions.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is the creation and publication of online content designed to educate and entertain. It’s far less promotional than an alternative like copywriting, and instead aims to build trust and interest in potential customers. Common examples of content marketing in action include blog posts, buying guides, email newsletters, videos and podcasts.

This content can then be optimised for search engines – in fact, content marketing is one of the most important aspects of SEO. Without high-quality, genuinely helpful content you simply won’t rank on the SERPs. And high ranks leads to more traffic, and increased revenue. Do you get the jist… 

With the rapidly growing presence of AI writing assistants, producing content at mass is now easier than ever. However, it’s no good churning out pages and pages of AI-generated content and hoping for conversions. Talk in the industry predicts an algorithm update on the horizon targeting this low-quality content. Plus, the point of content marketing is to genuinely help and engage its readers. Content provides substance and a point of connection to your audience – it’s the personable side of SEO.

How is content marketing different to SEO?

Whilst content marketing and SEO are closely linked, it’s important to understand the key differences – this lies in their function. Simply put, SEO drives relevant traffic from search engines to your website, and content marketing inspires these users to engage with your services and convert.

SEO, then, is a set of strategies aimed at improving the visibility and ranking of your website in search engine results pages. The aim is to attract non-paid traffic to your site by optimising various elements in line with Google’s algorithms – including keyword optimisation, backlink building, and improvements to technical elements.

Why is content important for SEO?

So, it’s all good having a robust SEO strategy, and heaps of users clicking through to your site – but once they’re here we want them to stay! Here’s a breakdown of the different ways content marketing compliments, and is ultimately critical for, SEO:

1. Content helps your pages rank better

It cannot be emphasised enough how important it is to show up in search engines, especially in Google’s results. Google made up 78% of global online search behaviour in 2023 and here in the UK over 80% of the population makes their e-commerce purchases online.

As said, content is extremely important to ensure your pages get seen. Without a good quantity of high quality content, search engines can’t index your pages, rank you on page 1, and send users your way.

Plus, this content needs to possess certain qualities. Search engines like Google use algorithms to determine the value of a website’s content so that, when users search for answers online, they’re delivering the most useful results possible. There are four things these algorithms love to see – experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (or E-E-A-T as it’s commonly known).

So, if your content showcases strong signals of experience and expertise etc. then this is a reliable way to gain visibility in the SERPs and bring in high-intent users.

Content also allows you to target specific or long-tail keywords that may be highly relevant to your target audience. Whilst it might not be possible to include all the relevant terms for your niche in your URL, headings and product descriptions, longer-form content like blogs is an easy way to make sure your site is still relevant for these words.

2. Content improves user experience

Quality content enhances the overall user experience, which is a positive signal for search engines and good news for your conversion rates. You want your content to be relevant, informative and easy to navigate – so that users turn into paying customers. 

The Demand Gen Report 2022 Content Preferences Survey found that 55% of buyers rely more deeply on content for making purchase decisions than they did a year ago. Plus, 90% of B2B buyers in 2023 researched 2-7 websites before making a purchase. Your content needs to be rich and genuinely useful to inspire users to choose your services and products. 

Effective content marketing means more traffic, clicks and reads, and this should result in a greater number of conversions. Good user experience is also integral for lower-intent users. Look at it this way, imagine someone opens Google to search for pancake topping ideas. You’ve published an in-depth and well-structured blog article on your kitchenware website addressing this query and its ranking on page 1 – this user reads your blog and the useful content inspires them to click through its internal links. They’re taken to a product page and encouraged to make a purchase, despite this not being their initial aim.

3. A large online presence is beneficial for SEO

It’s good to have a larger quantity of high-quality content on your site. The more content you have, the more chances you have for your web pages to come up in the search results. Also, by continuously adding content, you increase the crawl frequency of your website. However, it’s a common misconception that merely increasing the size of your website makes it appear more authoritative to search engines. John Mueller, at Google, has said that ‘it’s definitely not the case that if you have more pages indexed that we think your website is better’. Posting pages and pages of thin, AI-generated content is not the key to good SEO. Bigger is better but only if these pages have genuinely useful content.

There is also no such thing as having too much high-quality content – however, one thing to bear in mind is the risk of keyword cannibalisation. This scary-sounding term simply refers to similar pages within the same website competing with each other for a position on a SERP. Remember that Google ranks web pages, not websites. Just make sure that your content is unique, and target different keywords and user intents on each page.

4. Helpful content appeals to Google’s algorithm

The importance of writing good-quality content is made apparent in Google’s Helpful Content System – an algorithm update designed to promote quality content. This was launched back in 2022 and aimed to reduce “content that seems to have been primarily created for ranking well in search engines rather than to help or inform people.” So, Google wants to see content that is actually helpful and written for the user – exactly what content marketing is all about. These detailed buying guides and expert blogs are being specifically rewarded by search engine algorithms. You won’t find a clearer rationale to prioritise content marketing than right here, in Google’s own guidelines.

How do you ensure your content marketing strategy is actually going to produce helpful content? In Google’s guide to self-assess your content, they provide a list of questions to ask yourself before hitting publish. Your content needs to be ‘comprehensive’, ‘insightful’, ‘original’ and ‘the sort of page you’d want to bookmark’. We’d recommend taking a look at the full list of questions to ensure your content will rank.

5. Shareability and link-building

Creating valuable and engaging content is a great way to encourage readers to share your content with their friends and colleagues. Plus, things like blog posts are perfect to share on your company’s social media platforms to showcase expertise and foster trust. Whilst social shares are not a direct ranking factor, the more shares, the more traffic and potential conversions. Social media activity will also play an indirect role in SEO by increasing visibility and attracting backlinks. 

A strong content strategy full of helpful information or data is a great resource for naturally acquiring backlinks to your site. Acquiring high quality and relevant inbound links to your site is crucial for SEO because they signal to Google that this is an authoritative resource, worth ranking. Creating a piece of content that answers a query related to your industry could gain the interest of a journalist and earn you backlinks without you having to even outreach the campaign. But, to attract high-quality links from reputable sites make sure your content is equally as high-quality.

Struggling to see results with your content?

If you’re looking for an in-depth strategy for creating high-quality content see our guide to content writing for SEO. Or, if your business is struggling to see the results you’re after with your content, get in touch to find out how our SEO experts can help. You’d be in good company – half of all marketers say they outsource some content marketing – go ahead and fill in our 2-minute form today.

Of the three pillars of SEO, on-page, off-page and technical, it’s the latter which is most often ignored. The clue’s in the name – it’s technical and possibly the trickiest to get right. But neglecting to run regular technical audits of your website is a rookie error, and this blog is going to get into the nitty gritty of why this is.

What is a technical SEO audit, I hear you say? It’s essentially a deep dive into the technical aspects of a website – looking into its structure and code to identify points of issue and opportunity. It’s important to set the technical foundations at the beginning of your SEO strategy. Conducting a technical audit to ensure your pages are crawlable and indexable is crucial before we can get on with the next steps of a strategy. Technical SEO is also important from a user experience perspective, and this blog will clarify how elements like page speed are instrumental for the success of your site.

To reach those coveted top SERP positions where conversions and traffic are at your fingertips, your website needs to be fast, secure and crawlable to get Google and your target users on side.

There are a huge number of little elements that make up technical SEO, and this blog won’t cover everything. Instead, we’ve whittled down the world of technical SEO auditing to 5 key steps. Our aim is to make this complex subject matter nice and simple for you, so you can tackle a technical SEO audit with ease.

1. Ensure your site is crawlable

First and foremost, you need to check your website’s crawlability. This means making sure that search engines can find your pages and follow links within your site’s content. You can do this in a number of ways to make sure that your site, and specific pages, are crawlable. 

Firstly, it’s useful to check your ‘Crawl Stats’ report in Google Search Console. This will give you an overview of how your site is being crawled by different Googlebots and allows you to spot any unusual dips or increases in crawl requests that may need investigating.  It gives you statistics about how Google has been crawling your website over the last 90 days and is intended for websites that have more than 1000 pages (if your site is smaller, you won’t need to audit crawling information in so much detail). As shown in the screengrab below, the report provides you with data on the number of crawl requests, the total download size, and the average response time.

There is also a section titled ‘Hosts’ which is perhaps the most important area to audit, when analysing the health of your website. Under this section, Google accesses three crawlers: robots.txt fetch, DNS resolution, and server connectivity. 

You’ll ideally see three green ticks however, a white tick indicates that there has been at least one serious crawling issue in the past 90 days and a red exclamation mark shows you there’s been a crawling issue over the past week. If you’re not seeing three ticks, check the details to see if the issues were related to robots.txt fetch, DNS resolution, or server connectivity. Then, check the response codes of failed crawl requests and investigate the issue further.

Google Search Console is a goldmine for all things technical SEO. As well as checking out your Crawl Stats, be sure to look for any crawl errors in the Coverage Report. It will tell you if any specific pages have crawl issues. This is a problem to troubleshoot if any of your site’s key pages are flagged.

Another useful tool to assess your site’s crawlability is Google Search Console’s Sitemaps Report. A sitemap is a blueprint of your website that helps search engines crawl and index the content. In the sitemap you should include pages you want to be visible and rank for, and also any that search engines may have a hard time finding. The report will tell you if Google has had any problems receiving your sitemap. 

2. Assess your site’s indexability

Within the Sitemaps Report on Google Search Console, you’ll also receive information about any indexing issues. Indexability means that search engines can show your pages in search results. It’s all very well that Google is successfully crawling your pages, but we need them to be shown to users too.

Indexability can be audited a few different ways. Perhaps the easiest way is to simply enter site: followed by your domain name into Google, as we have done here:

The search results will then tell you the number of URLs indexed, for our site, 277 pages are indexed. Here, you‘ll want to keep an eye out for a large difference between the number of pages you have, and the number being indexed.

You can also use the ‘site:’ operator to establish whether a specific page on your site has been indexed by adding the page URL after ‘site:’. If the page doesn’t appear in the results, there may be an underlying issue for you to investigate as you could be missing out on valuable traffic if that page is important to your business or services. 

For an in-depth audit of a domain’s indexability, Google’s Coverage Report on the Search Console is definitely the way to go. As you’ll see below, this tool shows you the status of every page. The report identifies errors, indexed pages, pages with warnings attached, and excluded pages.

It can be easy to fall into the trap of trying to fix every issue highlighted in this report, but it’s important to assess this on a case-by-case basis and make changes where it will have the most impact on organic performance. For example, the report often highlights pages that include a noindex tag as an error, however, in most cases these will be pages that you simply decided you don’t want to be indexed but it’s worth a check in case a page with commercial value is on the list and you can quickly amend this. 

3. Is your website mobile-friendly?

Google began rolling out mobile-first indexing in 2018. This means that the search engine is increasingly using the mobile version of your pages for ranking, rather than the desktop form. Google explained that this move was ‘to better help out our – primarily mobile – users to find what they’re looking for’. 

In 2024, mobile search is more prevalent than ever, with  92.3% of internet users now accessing the internet using a mobile phone. That comes to a whopping 4.32 billion mobile internet users. What this all means for us is a need to make content and structures mobile-friendly. More and more of your competitors are presenting their content in the most accessible ways for mobile users. Making sure your website is also compatible will ensure you don’t miss out on valuable traffic.

What’s a free and easy way to check if your site is user-friendly? Well luckily for you, Google has another great tool. Its mobile-friendly test ‘Lighthouse’ runs a series of audits and assesses if your pages are mobile-responsive. It generates a comprehensive report, and each audit comes with a document guiding you through troubleshooting practices.

Here’s an example of how your Lighthouse report will hopefully look, should your mobile-accessibility be up to scratch. We’d also advise checking your website manually from your own mobile device. Check that components such as contact forms and phone number links are working successfully.

4. Audit page speed

For over 6 years now, page speed has been an important factor for Google searches and technical SEO. And page speed comes down to more than simply how fast your content loads – there’s not one metric. It’s all about providing a good user experience and ensuring it’s as easy as possible for search engines to crawl your pages. To achieve a thorough audit of page speed, you’ll need to go beyond assessing how quickly the site loads on your laptop. It’s a good idea to use online tools to get a full analysis.

Google has another free tool: Google PageSpeed Insights.This provides a performance score and review, along with showing you opportunities to make page speed savings.

If your site speed is lower than you’d like, there are a few effective fixes. For example, ensure you are using a quick server, that your caching is effective, and that your site doesn’t have too much unnecessary javascript.

Page Speed Insights may also highlight that there is work to be done to optimise your images to improve page speed. Often overlooked, auditing your images actually has numerous benefits. It should improve load speed which in turn will create a better user experience and could fuel conversion rates.

Here are a couple of pointers for addressing image optimisation:

📌Choose the right image format: PNG and JPEG are the most common, with PNG being better quality at the expense of a larger file size 

📌Compress your images: you can use Photoshop or TinyPNG to reduce their file size

📌Consider improving the image file structure: remember that the file path and file name are used to rank images so use a category related topic

5. On-page Technical Review

It’s also crucial not to neglect your on-page elements. Basic features like H1 tags and meta descriptions can be the difference between first and second position on the SERPs. An on-page review can be boiled down to these five key areas. We’ve listed them in order of importance so you know what to prioritise in your audit.

1. Canonical Tags: 

This distinguishes the primary and secondary version of duplicate content on your site and designates which version should be indexed. This is vital because it will save your crawl budget, and prevent important pages being missed.

2. Structured Data

Test your structured data using a tool like the Structured Data Testing Tool  and ensure it’s up to scratch to boost E-E-A-T signals. It contains information to help Google better understand your website, and can even land you a spot in the Knowledge Panel on search engine results.

3. Hreflang Tags

Hreflang tags are essential if you have different versions of your website in different languages. They can also function as a ranking signal so are important not to neglect if looking to improve your position in the SERPs.

4. Page Titles and Title Tags

Although it is time-consuming, we’d definitely recommend giving each of your important pages a title tag. This lets Google know what the page is about, and is also beneficial for user experience. Optimise by aiming for 50-60 characters, and including at least one targeted keyword.

5. Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions are another important way to summarise page content and encourage users to click through to your site. Try to make these descriptive and unique but below 105 characters. Undertake some research into user intent to ensure your descriptions include what the users want to see. Adding a call to action (like ‘learn more’ or ‘try for free’) is also a good idea.

Of course, there are many other important elements to review and investigate during your technical audit but we’ve outlined our highest priority checks above (as these also often have the highest impact if we are finding issues in these areas). When you are conducting a technical audit, you will also want to review overall site security – have you installed an SSL certificate? Additionally, checking your internal links are working effectively is significant for user experience, and you should audit pagination and response codes to ensure users are directed correctly.

Get professional help with a technical SEO audit

At Cedarwood Digital we offer a range of technical SEO services, whether you need an audit completed for your website, or some support with a website migration. Our white label SEO service will give you the best foundation to perform well in organic search. We have years of experience working with SMEs and large organisations on full audits, link audits, crawl evaluations, and everything in between.

Drop us an email at [email protected] or fill in our quick form today to find out more.