Print & Copy Factory Blog

Your Website Is Your Megaphone, Use It!

21 Jun 2019 2 Comments

by Becky in Marketing TIPS, Tutorial Series, Web, Web@Work

Yes, Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising is a proven method to in reaching your target audience, but what if I told you your website alone can help you reach some of this demographic for free? In fact, Search Engine Optimization involves thinking about the whole picture, not just PPC. While paid advertising is considered as the “quick and dirty” method, there’s also the “slow and steady” path you can take. Best of all, you’re allowed to and should take both directions!

You might ask, “Why is this important?”

When you stop paying for advertising and forgot to invest time into Organic SEO (your website and your content), most of your traffic to your website could disappear! You have no other choice, but to keep paying for advertising. Let’s be honest, having only one option isn’t really an option.

Make Friends With Googlebot

I’m going to give you a small glimpse into Technical SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by providing a few easy methods you should start implementing right now!

Part of my job in web development is to know how to build websites that will be heard and seen across the internet as best as possible. Website is not a static brochure, but a powerfully constructed megaphone waiting to be used for bringing traffic and revenue to your business.

In a previous article, “Don’t Be Your Librarian’s Worst Nightmare,” I explained how Googlebot is very much like a librarian who sorts websites and the content of its pages into “books” for users to be lead to the correct information. Not only is it good to let Googlebot know of your website and where the specific locations of your pages are, but it’s also essential to give some context of what your content is about.

Page Titles & Page Descriptions

Googlebot isn’t human like you and me. It only cares if you go by its rules and demands from you to meet its requirements or else it will ignore your content. When Googlebot indexes your website, one of the first things it pulls is the Title and Description of each individual page. In HTML code (the skeleton of your website), there is a Title Tag and a Meta Tag for a description. Below are screenshots of what Googlebot sees:

BUT JAKE, I DON’T KNOW HOW TO CODE!

Not to worry! We have already programmed inside all of our client websites an easier way to alter these tags.

• Login to your website (www.yourwebsite.com/admin) and use your username and password
• On the top left, under Content, go to Content Manager
• Select which Page you want to alter.
• In the Main tab, locate the Title field and SEO Description field.
• Click Apply at the top before exiting

What to Write In the Title of Your Page

For titles, use descriptive keywords instead of a generic name for the page. As an example, let’s take a look at the homepage of Print & Copy Factory’s website:

In this Title tag, we have a few keywords Googlebot can pull from:

Print, Copy, Web, Bellingham, Marketing, and Resource

See how this is so much better than using “Home” or “Homepage”?

What to Write In the SEO Description of Your Page

For Meta description tags, effectively state the solution to the problem within the first sentence. Keep it concise, around 150 characters and use keywords for robots to notice. Here’s what Print and Copy’s homepage description reads:

Keywords in this description: Bellingham, Washington, Whatcom County, Business, Printer, Commercial, Printshop, Digital Press, Copiers, Color Printers

How Googlebot Uses These Tags

So after implementing the changes, I will say it takes a while for Googlebot to notice, but eventually, it will update its database. Here’s what happens when I search for “printing bellingham” in Google Search Engine. As you can see in the screenshot below, we have the correct Title Tag as well as the correct description we gave to the homepage.

Bonus: Give Descriptions for All Media Content

The best part about this method is, it can be applied to everything including images, videos, buttons, etc. For example, if you want to give a description for an image, click on the image to highlight it. On the text editor’s toolbar, click the Image Icon and Insert/edit image box will appear. Write a description in the Image Description field. Click OK. Most importantly, click Apply before exiting.

Again, here’s what Googlebot will pick up:

Do’s & Don’ts of Giving Descriptions

To wrap this up, here’s a guideline of how to write great descriptions for your website.

Do:

• Do use effective and rich keywords to describe your product
• Do try to be concise and make the first sentence as your hook
• Do give descriptions for everything including pages and content
• Do provide unique descriptions for all pages and content

Don’t:

• Don’t copy/paste the same description for everything
• Don’t use generic descriptions for your pages and media content
• Don’t use irrelevant keywords that have nothing to do with the content
• Don’t “stuff” keywords as a substitute for writing full sentences