Assess Your Website Platform - One of the most important aspects of a strong
SEO program is the ability to understand the flexibility of your website.
Often we start working with a firm that has a beautiful website and high
aspirations for SEO only to discover the website platform they are using is
very rigid and will not allow them to make many, if any, changes. So the
first step is to determine the platform your website is built on. Generally
there are three categories under which website platforms can be classified
including; flat file website, HTML coded, open source content management
systems (CMS), and proprietary (closed source) CMS.
So as not to get lost in the technical details, generally speaking, the
easiest systems to work with are open source CMS; examples include
Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal. These systems are easily customized and are
built to be SEO-friendly. The most difficult systems are proprietary CMS
systems, or websites that are based on a non-customizable template or
purchased from a vendor who sets up the entire site. Technically speaking, a
proprietary CMS is a system that requires you to pay a monthly fee to
license the software, or a system where you don't have access to the base
code of the website. These systems are generally not SEO-friendly and often
require firms to rely on the web developer to make prescribed changes.
Whatever the case is for your firm, it's important to know from the outset
what type of platform you are on so you can properly set expectations.
Evaluate Your Site Content - Review the content on your website. Is the
expertise of your firm properly represented? After reading each of the
service pages do you feel that there is the appropriate information for a
site visitor to understand what you offer?
This is an essential point to consider. If the service content does an
inadequate job of describing what you do, doesn't provide essential
highlights or explain why your firm is different, then are you really
providing enough information? Often accounting firm websites will simply
provide a bullet pointed list of the various services they offer. No
discussion about the approach, years of expertise or why their firm is a
better choice over another. If this describes your content, then you should
consider making a change. Take the time to give the essential details and
give the site visitors reasons to want to connect with you and do business
with your firm.
This is the approach an SEO professional will take. You can either do this
yourself, or pay a substantial fee to have this done for you. Additionally,
once you have reviewed your content, consider allowing someone outside of
your company to read it. An unbiased outsider might be able to offer
additional insight or have questions you may not have thought to answer.
Review & Refresh Keywords - Keywords tell search engines what the content on
a specific page is about. This helps search engines properly index each page
according to subject matter. For this reason it's essential to review the
keywords on your website to ensure they appropriately describe the subject
matter of the page. It is a common occurrence for those not familiar with
SEO to use the same set of keywords across multiple pages without
considering if the words are at all related to the page's content.
In addition, be sure that your site has no more than four keywords per page.
This is an important point because it seems the trend today is to keyword
stuff as many keywords as possible onto each page of the website. It's
unclear why so many take this approach, but search engines will ignore
keywords when keyword stuffing occurs. Finally, it's essential to consider
the keywords being used. Are they technical? Are they using terms no CPAs
and other industry professionals will understand? If so, then you need to
revisit your approach. Most of your potential prospects don't know industry
language so you need to select keyword terms they would use as opposed to
what you think is best. Consider the following example. The Patient
Protection Act of 2012 is the proper name for the often mentioned healthcare
reform legislation. However, if you did some research you would see that
most people refer to it as Obamacare. So it's important to consider the mind
of the end user when approaching website keywords.
Update Your Sitemap - The sitemap is a page on your website that lists the
url of each page on your site. There are two purposes to a sitemap. First,
it provides visitors with easy access to pages of interest to them. Second,
it provides search engines with the ability to quickly and easily index
existing and new pages of your site as they are added. If your website doesn't
have a sitemap, then it's important to implement one as soon as possible.
Since the sitemap is meant to be current, anytime you add new pages to your
website it is essential to update the map as soon as possible. This makes
your new content easier for search engines and visitors to find.
Website Tracking Software - Measurement is a core concept in the accounting
profession, and measuring SEO success is no exception. It's important to be
able to measure metrics such as monthly website traffic, commonly searched
keyword terms, traffic sources, and social media engagement so that you will
know if your SEO activities are performing the way you want them to. If you
don't already have website tracking software, I recommend you sign up for
Google Analytics. The service is free and it provides a significant amount
of information about website performance.
my motto is "Keep it simple" and "don't leave anything for tomorrow that can
be done today."
Regards Gerald Crawford
Stellenbosch South Africa
Cell: +27-0720390184 (mobile)
E-mail: gerald@webcraft.ws
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