Search Engine Optimisation is a method of increasing the quantity and quality of website traffic. In this post, I will go over some techniques that apply specifically to Chatham, Kent on how to increase the number of users to your site. There are hundreds of different factors that go into SEO and many aspects that need understanding if you want to increase the number of website visitors. Local SEO is a key part of a location-based business. Meaning that if you are business based in Chatham, Kent you want to get people in that area finding you, not someone halfway across the world. Let’s break down the factors that you need to consider when optimising locally:
- Quality of traffic – Getting the right kind of traffic to your website. If you are getting traffic for the correct search terms
- Quantity of traffic – Getting a large number of new and returning visitors.
- Who your aiming at – Who is your audience? You need to consider the type of person who needs your business and what they would search to find you.
The next section will go over some techniques that all Kent and Chatham business should consider.
Google My Business
According to Geo Marketing – 56 per cent of local retailers haven’t claimed their business on Google, 46 per cent of Google searches use local data to find the best results. Meaning over half of the local businesses are missing out and a lot of search traffic! Optimising your Google My Business is key to getting more local search traffic.
What does it mean to be have an optimised local Google Business account? Well here’s an example.
Below you can see I searched “website design”. You can see here that Developer Rocket is top. This is because I have set up my local business account and optimised it for local searches. Anyone in my area well gets the same results as they are location-based. The same applies to search terms like “coffee shop”, it shows my best-ranked coffee shop in the area.
You can see straight away the importance of local searches. So if you are in Chatham, make sure your local SEO is fully optimised on Google My Business by signing up here. You will notice that the Local search and Organic search are completely different. If you scroll down after the local search results you will see the organic results. This will look different and it will usually be websites like Wikipedia or Tripadvisor in this area as they rank a lot higher. So it’s important to make sure you are optimising for both local and organic search for your business in Chatham, Kent.
Is your website mobile optimised?
Research done by Brightlocal says that 61% of mobile users are more likely to contact local businesses with a mobile-friendly website. There are a few ways of testing this. You can simply view your website on your mobile and see if it is usable, fast and looks good. But Google also has a test for this, Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test Tool will scan your website and tell you if your site is mobile friendly.
A lot of old websites may not run well on new screen sizes, and some might not even have a mobile site. Many local businesses I have seen have neglected the mobile site, meaning its just a duplicate of the desktop version but smaller. This means the user has to zoom in and out in order to navigate, which isnt a good user experience.
Chatham SEO, Keyword Research
An important factor when it comes to SEO is keyword research. This involves looking for keywords that people might use to find your business. I’m going to do some keyword research for a fake Cafe in Chatham so you can understand the process. My new Cafe is going to be called “Dan’s Corner Coffee”
How do I want to be found?
As a new Cafe, I want people to find me using certain search terms. I’m going to brainstorm some ideas. If I was looking for a cool Cafe in Chatham I would search:
- Cafe near me
- Coffee shop Chatham
- coffee in Chatham
- cute cafe in Chatham
- Chatham best cafe
- cool coffee shop in Chatham
These are just some search terms off the top of my head. But would they rank high if I used them? A way to find out would be using a free tool called Google Keyword Planner. In order to use this, you need to have a Google Ads account but you don’t actually have to pay anything, it just needs to be set up. So lets put these keywords and phrases into Google Keyword Planner to see what comes up.
You can see that the keywords that I initially search. “Cafe near me” has a lot of monthly searches so it may not be a good keyword to target as it will be hard to stand out. The phrases “coffee in Chatham” and “Chatham coffee shops” both have low competition but also low monthly searches. It might be worth having these keywords on the website but they probably won’t bring many searches. Above, you can see “Broaden your search”, you can use these as suggestions to make the search better. Further down there are some keyword ideas and some more that I have added
You can see above the new keywords that Google Keyword Planner has given me. From this, I can understand what keywords would be good to use on my website as well as in my blog posts. If this was a real business I would use keywords:
- Chatham Coffee
- Chatham Coffee shops
- best coffee in Chatham
- cute coffee shops near me
I would also begin to write regular blog posts which use keywords:
- health benefits of coffee
- is coffee healthy
- low calory coffee
- Best decaf coffee
These keywords would increase my authority, increase backlinks (hopefully people would share my blog posts). It would tell Google that my website is a good source of information, as well as my website, is important in Chatham when it comes to coffee. Google Keyword Planner is a great tool for testing your keywords as well as finding new ones to use for your blog posts and on the website.
Optimising your website to a specific location
If you have a shop or office in multiple locations, you could use multiple landing pages specifically for that location. For example, if you have an office in Chatham, Rochester, Strood and Maidstone this allows you to rank on Google for all of those locations. This technique is only recommended if you have physical locations.
To do this make sure you put the location in the URL, H1, H2 and meta description. It will increase your visibility and authority in the local area.
Why specify the location when I am a UK wide business?
If you are a business that is UK wide, then it’s understandable that you want to make sure your business portrays this. But if you are, for example, a small, branding and logo design business then you will struggle to outrank any of the big websites. So its much more likely that you will rank high locally. On top of this, I have found people are more likely to use local services or products compared to somewhere else in the country. People are more comfortable knowing you are local.
However it is worth noting that even if you don’t specify your location you willl still appear locally on results if you have your Google maps location set up.
Helping Local People = Backlinks = SEO Increase
A great way of increasing your search traffic for your local area is by increasing your backlinks. What is a backlink?
“A backlink is a link created when one website links to another. Backlinks are also called “inbound links” or “incoming links.” Backlinks are important to SEO.” – Backlinks, https://moz.com/learn/seo/backlinks
So how do you get more backlinks in Chatham? A simple way of doing this is to help people and produce useful content that people like. An example of this could be a blog post that talks about the “best photography spots in Chatham” if you are a local photographer. This would gain you a lot of organic search results, people would probably link to your article on various social media platforms and on their own websites. This generates backlinks, which then increases your ranking on Google.
A quick way of getting backlinks is by registering with business directories like Yell and Yelp.
The Facebook group below would be a great place to share an article about the best photography spots in Chatham. Everyone in the group would see it, they might share it and add it to their website. You might also get a few clients from it. So it’s definitely worth creating useful content.
Producing infographics is also a great way of generating backlinks. People love visual content so making a great looking, information-rich and easy to understand infographic could get a lot of exposure. You can get in touch with popular blog posts and ask them if they want to add to their blog by posting an infographic about it, this would link to your website.
Final Thoughts
If you are a business based in Chatham, there are a lot of things you can be doing to increase your website traffic. First, make sure your business is registered on Google My Business. Post regular blog posts with researched keywords. Make sure your website is fully mobile responsive. Optimise for a specific location and produce local content for your area! If you do this I guarantee you will get more website traffic.