We’ve been successfully providing Noosa SEO services here at Mucho (and our previous incarnation Immedia) for over 20 years. When we started, we were optimising for Yahoo and the main web browser was Netscape. That makes us feel really old experienced!

Of course, a lot has changed in that time but techniques for optimising your website for Google have been pretty stable for some years now. We’d like to share some of our expertise so you can start to get more action on your Sunshine Coast website. There’s a lot that you can do yourself without expert help.

SEO is simply about getting a higher ranking for your website, which means more traffic and more enquiries and more sales. Getting the basics right is often the most cost-effective and best value marketing you can do.

The Basics

Google’s aim is always to provide the best possible page to answer a searcher’s enquiry. And as they say themselves: “Our site quality algorithms are aimed at helping people find ‘high-quality’ sites by reducing the rankings of low-quality content. ”

So, before you even start trying to improve your search rankings, make sure your website and content are not ‘low-quality’:

  • Make sure your website looks professional
    As a small business, you don’t need to go too crazy with design – but make sure your website looks good on desktop and mobile, and accurately reflects your brand.  If your website’s looking a bit tired, now may be the time for a revamp!
  • Make sure your content is high quality
    Spammy or duplicate content is a definite no-no. Check that your content is grammatically correct and free from typos. Over-frequent repetitions of keywords counts against you – read it aloud and if it sounds OK it probably is. Update old or outdated information. If you have useful information for customers, consider writing a blog post.
  • Make sure your site is free from technical problems
    Popups, broken links, security issues and a slow website will all stop you from getting a good ranking. Get it fixed!

It’s not possible to get a good search ranking with a poor website so do all this first! Take a look at your competitors’ websites and make sure yours is better.

We can run a FREE site audit report to help you identify any problems with your site.

Get Connected

Now your site’s looking great it’s time to make sure you’re plugged in to the rest of the web. Link building is a key feature of SEO, but you can get started with some low hanging fruit. List your website with any free directories or industry associations you can, including the following:

  • Google My Business page (very important for establishing your location)
  • Your Facebook Business page
  • Linkedin Profile
  • Bing Places page
  • Directories like LocalSearch, Yellow Pages and Sunshine Coast Directory

It’s important to make sure that you’re consistent when you enter your business name and contact details.

Establish Trust

Trust is important to Google, and the best way to enhance your reputation online is to get some 5-star reviews coming in from your customers and display them on your website and other sites.

We’ve been doing reputation marketing for our clients for eight years now, but it’s easy to get started yourself. The best place to get reviews is on your Google My Business Page, and  Facebook reviews are always good. You may like to check out Product Review and there may be others that are suitable for your industry. Do some research to see what your competitors are using.

Once you’ve built up a good record of reviews, don’t forget to brag about it on your website!

Start Optimising

There’s a lot of optimisation you can do without getting too technical, and without getting into keyword research and user intent. Often, your keywords will be obvious to you – for a local small business they can be as simple as location + service, eg sunshine coast carpet cleaning

  • Make sure your site has a separate page for each major product or service you offer.
    You’ll generally rank better if you do this.
  •  Keywords
    You don’t want to go crazy repeating your keywords but ideally, they should be in your main title and the first paragraph. And maybe the last paragraph for good measure.
  • Quality Content
    And unique, of course – no copying! Writing for the internet is different to writing for print. Make sure the text is scannable. That means headers, subheaders, lists, short paragraphs, short sentences. And a bit of bold text here and there.
  • Quantity
    The minimum is around 700 words, but really this depends on how competitive the keyword is. If the #1 page in the search results is 2,000 words, that’s probably what it’ll take.
  • Images
    They say a picture is worth a thousand words but I’m not sure if that’s exactly true in the context of SEO. But good quality, relevant images should be used where possible.
  • Calls to action
    It’s not strictly SEO, but don’t forget to tell people to buy, book or contact you now!

Call in the experts

Well done! Now you’ve done that, pour yourself a coffee (or something stronger if it’s Friday). Wait for 4-6 weeks and have another look to see if you’re shooting up the rankings. If you’re not, you can call me to complain!

And if you want to take your SEO to the next level, start by ordering a FREE, no obligation website audit, and we’ll take it from there. Our services vary from one-off SEO overhauls for smaller websites, to an ongoing monthly project.

All our monthly work is no-contract and based on time spent, with regular progress reports.