5 SEO Rules Every Business Should Follow

At Mpowering Solutions, we encourage all business owners to build their own website. It's much easier nowadays, thanks to website builders from different web hosts like Wix and Hosting, and it is way cheaper than hiring a web developer. But what about your SEO? Do you have to hire an expert to do it, or can you give it a go yourself?

The answer is you can try it yourself! An expert (like us, hint hint) will be able to identify issues and provide additional insights that you may not have access to due to software and programmes we pay for, but when it comes to the fundamentals, you can absolutely do it yourself!

Out there in the wild, wild Internet, some SEO "experts" look to make SEO intimidating, telling you to download their SEO guide with 300 points of action to improve your SEO game. Who has time for that?!

We won't lie to you: it is true that there are quite a few parameters for SEO success, but we can guarantee you it isn't in the hundreds! If you're using a trusted website builder, they will take care of half the work; you just need to ensure you click a few buttons and select the right settings.

In this article, we explore the top 5 SEO tips for every business, whether you are an eCommerce business or a tradesman and service provider. They are easy tips to implement, but are often overlooked by people new to web design and SEO.

It's all about coding

Before we get started, it is helpful for you to understand how websites work. We won't bogged down in unnecessary detail, but all you need to know is that, what we may see as a complete website with pretty formatting, lovely images and colours, all of it is powered by long pieces of code in the background. So for instance, this image of our lovely Chief of Morale, Kobe:

is actually this bit of code:

<img src=
"https://mpoweringsolutions.co.uk/Kobe-Shiba-Inu.jpg">

(Not the actual working file name, but just as an example)

Our computers just work with the Internet to pull that file and load it as an image. So in other words, everything you see on any website, no matter how many images there are, it's all powered by long bits of code, aka text.

These days, you don't need to be a coding whizz to implement SEO, because website builders make it so easy and accessible for anybody to have a go. However, it is helpful to bear in mind that code (text) is the foundation of every website and every programme you use.

Also, randomly, it helps to think of your website as a book. As you will see in the below descriptions.

Now onto the stuff you actually came to this page for.

#1: Meta titles and descriptions

Meta titles and descriptions are the titles and descriptions that appear on a search engine results page but not on your actual webpages. They are vital to describe exactly what your particular web page is about to the user, so they know what to expect if they click through to your link. Below is a screenshot of our meta title and description and how it appears on Google:

The meta title, sometimes called the title tag, is the header, while the meta description is the blurb of text underneath that describes what your webpage is about. They are in a part of the code that does not appear on your actual website. So using the book example, your website is the book, but your meta title and description are the bits you send to the press to describe what your book is about. Your readers won't see that press release, but other influential people (in this case, Google and other search engines) who decide whether to review, sell or display your book can access it and use it.

Each webpage should have a unique meta title and meta description. If your website is a book, your individual webpages are the chapters. Just as each chapter of a book has its own subplot or part of the story, each webpage has its own unique purpose, and so the meta title and description should reflect that.

For the meta title, you should aim to keep it around 45-55 characters, so it doesn't get cut off and truncated by Google. You should include relevant information, such as what that page is about. Sometimes it isn't possible to fill that character count, like your biography will probably just be called "Biography" or "About Me". If that is the case, don't stuff it and include unnecessary or irrelevant information--that can harm your ranking. This is the header, so short and succinct is better than long-winded and confusing.

The meta description is where you can get more creative. Every SEO agency has a different recommendation for length (usually between 150-160 characters), but on average it is around 156 characters. Any longer and it will truncate it so your sentence trails off; any shorter, you're potentially wasting key real estate for SEO ranking. You should ensure your meta description describes what's on your page, and use relevant and common keywords and key terms, explained in the next tip.

If you have a description on your webpage that is visible to the user, feel free to reuse it as your meta description; don't feel like you have to break out your creative writing skills and write another version of it. But make sure that your meta titles and descriptions are filled out, otherwise Google won't know which part of your website should be displayed as the description, and they might end up using a bit of text that doesn't best describe your website.

#2: Keyword Research

Say you sell silk dog collars, and you want to call them "dog necklaces". That's great! But what if you're the only person in the world that calls them "dog necklaces", because everybody calls them collars. You then create an entire website on dog necklaces, it looks beautiful, but if nobody knows about that term, nobody will search it, and nobody will find your website. Or people could be looking for a necklace with a dog pendant, but you're showing them collars, so they will deem it irrelevant to their request and leave your website, which can have a negative impact on your SEO ranking.

As much as we want to be unique, in order to be commercial, we have to be mass market. So you need to understand what people are searching so you can leverage off that traffic and volume. So you can absolutely still use the phrase "dog necklaces" if you are set on it (though beware of the negative impact if people think your products don't match their requirements), but make sure you also use the term "collar" which has a much higher search volume.

If you have a few terms in mind and want to know which one has more interest, a great free tool to use is Google Trends. Using the "Explore" tab, you can type in the terms you have in mind and compare them. So as an example, we are comparing "dog necklace" to "dog collar" in the UK over the past year.

The bar graph compares the average interest in each term against each other. Blue is "dog necklace" and red is "dog collar", and you can see that interest (i.e. searches) in "dog collar" is over 10 times higher than "dog necklace", and this remains consistent throughout the past 12 months. Therefore, by simply switching your terminology and using "dog collar" instead of "dog necklace", you can potentially gain up to 10 times more views and visits.

Of course, if you make the change, the uplift will probably take time, but by making that adjustment, that's the first step.

SEO companies and experts have additional tools that help with providing greater insight and analysis into keywords, and these software licenses pretty pricey, which is why SEO agencies are somewhat expensive. So agencies like Mpowering Solutions provide a lot more depth of knowledge in terms of keywords. However, if you're just starting out and want to give it a go, Google Trends is a great starting point for DIY research, as it provides a lot of great insight such as related queries and search geographies that you can use.

#3: Name and describe your images properly

When you create your website, you write your text properly, but do you know it is equally as important to describe your images properly as well?

This is because search engines use crawlers to crawl through your website to understand what content you have. And as much as your imagination might make you think these crawlers are creepy robots with incredible AI capabilities that will soon take over humanity, the reality is they are bits of code reading other bits of code. Meaning they are designed to read text, not process images.

Naming and describing your images also has the added bonus that this makes imagery accessible to users with visual disabilities and/or living with sight loss. These users often use screen readers to describe what is on a webpage for them. Therefore, by adding descriptions to these images, you can ensure they do not miss out on your content, and can enjoy your website as much as able-sighted users can.

You can achieve this by using alt texts. If you are using a website builder, click on your image and find the field that says "Alt Text". You can then describe your image. Make them descriptive but still short and snappy. No need for an A-Level essay for this!

One piece of advice that is often overlooked is to also name the image file in a descriptive but sensible name. On some website builders, this is irrelevant for one reason or another, but it is a good practice to get into. If you think about the code above, you can see that the file name is part of your code, and that is what Google crawlers are reading when they're analysing your page. So if you presented an image name with "2024-05-28.jpg", that tells Google nothing, but if the file is called "Kobe-Shiba-Inu.jpg", this tells Google that

1. The file is an image (code indicates this as well as the .jpg

2. The image is of something called Kobe, Shiba and Inu

This means that, if someone goes onto Google images to search "Kobe Shiba Inu", Google will go, "hang on, I remember seeing an image with those words" and will show your image to the person.

Again, it is worth noting that some website builders (like Hostinger) will override the name you give, but it is still worth doing just in case.

#4: Text hierarchy

Let's use the book analogy again. A book has chapters, and each chapter is denoted with a fresh page and a chapter name. Some books even have subheadings in each chapter, but there is only 1 chapter name, regardless of how much text or how many subheadings are in chapter.

If your website is a book, your webpages are your chapters. So each webpage should have a heading, and that is formatted as Heading 1. Just as each chapter should only have 1 chapter name, each webpage should only have 1 Heading 1.

Often, people think selecting Heading 1 (H1) is just to change the formatting, as many web builders automatically make that piece of text bigger and bolder to stand out from your regular text. Yes, the visuals are important. Think of the below example.

On the left, the text all looks the same, even though there is a heading and subheading in there. On the right, the headings are formatted different to be bold and bigger, making them stand out and breaking up the body of text into digestible parts.

But the function of H1 formatting goes beyond visual; it helps search engine crawlers understand what is on your page, and--arguably more importantly--it helps users who are using screen readers due to their disabilities. This is because of the code that H1 headings have. To the able-sighted user, in the above example on the right, you can see where the breaks are and which lines are the headings and sub-headings. But for the screen reader, they actually interpret the below code:

<h1>The Origins of Lasagne</h1>

<p>The exact inventor of the lasagne is unknown. Instead... in the 14th century.</p>

<h2>From Greece to USA</h2>

<p>Eventually, in the late 1800s, the dish made its way to North America, thanks to Italian...</p>

So when a screen reader comes across the text, they know to read out the text in a different way to denote the start of the chapter (H1), the sub-headings (H2, H3 etc), the body text (P, which stands for paragraph) and so on. And search engine crawlers operate the same way, so by breaking down the text into different sections by indicating the format and intention of the text, it helps Google understand what your page is about.

But make sure each webpage only has one H1 heading in it. If you think of your H1 heading as your chapter title, each chapter only has one title; everything else that follows are sub-headings or sub-titles. If your chapter has two titles, that's just confusing. So it's the same with H1 formatting. If your webpage has two H1 headings, Google will look at the page and go "hang on a minute, which one is the true heading?", which confuses it, which can impact Google's understanding of your webpage and its contents. You can have as many H2s, H3s and so on as you want, but make sure you only have one H1.

It is worth noting that best practice dictates that you format your headings in hierarchical order, so you start with an H1, then use H2 for any sub-headings, and if you have a sub-heading under that, that's then H3 and so on. In reality, it is not a make-or-break action, but it breaks your webpage into a logical order, which will help your users, especially those using screen readers.

#5: Check your mobile site

When using a website builder, we often use our laptops or desktop computers, both of which have a landscape orientation, meaning the display is horizontal. So whatever you build will look great on a horizontal (wide) screen. But now more than ever, people are browsing on the go on their mobile phones, which have a portrait i.e. vertical orientation, meaning the display is tall. This means, if you don't optimise your layout to suit a vertical screen, your content will either shrink so it displays on a narrower screen, or it'll be out of order and look completely different to the beautiful landscape design you've spent so long creating.

All website builders have a toggle to show you your desktop and mobile views, so you can see what your page looks like on those screens. Many people forget to double check their mobile layout, and yes, it is a pain to re-format and rework the layout, but it's worth it. Mobile traffic has seen a substantial growth over the past 10 years with the advancement of mobile data and 4G/5G technology, and accounted for 63.38% of Internet traffic in September 2024. So it is imperative to check your mobile layout and ensure it's as pretty as your desktop one.

In terms of mobile optimisation, it isn't because the code is any different (though there are bound to be some changes between mobile and desktop coding but you don't have to worry about that). It is more because it then creates a better user experience, which is vital to good search ranking. Google rank their results page based not just on a webpage's content but also the experience a user gets from that page. If a user clicks onto the page and spends more time browsing, even navigating within that website to different pages, Google takes it as a sign that that webpage is giving the right information to the user's query, which in turn helps improve that webpage's ranking.

So if your website isn't mobile optimised, users will probably land on your webpage, think "oh wow that site looks messy" and will just leave without spending much time on it. This will indicate to Google that your webpage was not relevant to that user's query, and will demote your webpage within its list of results.

Is that all?

There are more things to consider when working on SEO, but the above is a great starting point. So if you're feeling confident, make those changes yourself, but be patient: SEO is not an overnight fix, and requires patience and constant tweaking and monitoring to take effect.

If you aren't fully confident on how to implement the above points, never fret! Get in touch with us and we can help with our Website Audit, where we run your website through our 30-point checklist to ensure your website is fully functional from both UX (user experience) and SEO perspectives.