How to optimise your website, blog and podcast for SEO with Sarah & Hannah

This week we’re going to be talking about SEO – Search Engine Optimisation. And to help me (because I know nothing about SEO) I have TWO lovely guests with me! We have the lovely Sarah and Hannah, who are the hosts of SEO SAS. These girls have worked in this industry a long while and they love SEO, so I knew they would be the perfect people to come on and talk to you about this subject. And perhaps you may even be inspired to do something with your own SEO!KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTSEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation – the process of increasing both the quality and quantity of traffic to your website, by increasing the visibility of the website or web pages to people via search engines such as google.Google has over 200 ranking factors. There are over 200 factors that google look at when they are ranking pages and websites.Most people when they think about SEO, they just think about keywords. It is now so much more sophisticated. You need to think about things such as page speed, user experience, technical aspects and accessibility.Making one change can make a huge difference, and that may be all you need to do for a couple of months. Simply changing a page title could increase traffic by 20%!SEO is NOT dead! It is still very important.There are two types of key words – Educational and Transactional.You can find out how people are finding you and what they are searching for by using free tools such as Google Search Console.Domain Authority is a score out of 100, based on the amount of back links to your website and how trustworthy your website is.You need to make sure everything linked to your website is relevant, trustworthy and natural. Otherwise it can be spammy.There are link specialists who can help you with your link building. If you are linking out, make sure it is natural and relevant. When getting links to your site, there are lots of different ways you can do this, such as, creating useful articles that can help others (guest post), give a quote about the latest news on another website and digital PR – fun ways to get people talking.Make sure your blog title is click worthy and answering something that people are going to search for or something that people don’t even know they want yet.You can research what people are looking for through Google AdWords.Make sure all your subheadings in your blog are optimised too!Is there some added value you can add to your blog compared to those that are already out there? Such as a video, more images, more information.Give people a reason to stay on your site longer and go to other areas after they have read your blog post, or even convert!Make sure your images are no bigger than 100kb as this can slow down your page speed.Name your image something relevant, add alt text (alternative text) that describes that image.Metadata is the information that displays in google – you can decide this! Make sure your title is 60-70 characters long, optimised with key words. Description 120-160 characters, use key words here too!CTR – click through rate. This will depend on the quality of your metadata.Test your title tags and metadata using Google Analytics.SEO for your podcast – show notes and transcripts for google to be able to understand. Work out what key words your podcast should rank for and optimise elements on that page.Schemer – code that tells google what that content is – Use Google Tag Manager.Share your podcast on other channels to promote it but also adds links.Sentiment – reviews – google takes this into account.Don’t delete products or pages without knowing the consequences! 404 error pages will occur (bad user experience).Optimise your URLs – think of keywords.Update your SEO as an ongoing task – google is always changing its algorithm.Keep an eye on what your competitors are doing.Test and measure what you are doing/using.THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…You don’t have to be an SEO expert but there are a lot of things you can do and a lot of tools you can use in order to make a difference. Plus, you can always go over and listen to Sarah and Hannah’s podcast if you want to learn more about anything we have discussed today.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSAn introduction to Sarah and Hannah – 07:10What is SEO – the basics – 12:27The myths of SEO – 18:25Educational vs Transactional keywords – 25:25Tools you can use to help you with SEO – 28:02Links – do I need them? – 37:08How to help your blog SEO – 46:14Adding images to your blog – 49:14Metadata – 51:46SEO for podcasts – 55:09What NOT to do – 1:01:08Transcript below Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How's your week been? Okay. You know those jobs that you put off, all the time? And you think, I'm definitely going to get around to that, I'm definitely going to do that when I have more time? Well, today's episode might inspire you to get on and do one of those jobs, because today we are talking all about SEO. That's right, you heard correct, search engine optimization. I can't even say it, let alone teach you anything about it.It is not going to be a surprise that today I have not one, but two lovely guests with me because, quite honestly, what I know about SEO would last about 30 more seconds. It's something that, for whatever reason, I put such a mental block on, and just A, I feel like I find it difficult, and B, it's something that doesn't interest me, which doesn't help it. Or, help me when I'm trying to learn it. Anyway, it's super important. I'm trying so hard not to put a downer on it, before these two amazing women come on. It's super important, and I know there are lots of you out there who do do some SEO stuff, and therefore it was really important for me to get someone on to talk about this, because I know I don't know anywhere near enough of what I need to know about it.And if you're sat there thinking, I don't even know what SEO is, or search engine optimization is, then you will still want to listen to this episode, because I promise you there is something for everyone. We are talking at a fairly good level that most people should be able to take something away from this. If I can understand it, then believe me, you can absolutely understand it.I really, really want you to enjoy today's episode, and like I said, maybe you will be inspired to do something with your own SEO. So today, I have the very lovely Hannah and Sarah, who are the hosts of the podcast SEO SAS. This is going to be a really difficult podcast, if I've got to keep saying stuff like that. These two girls have worked in this industry for a long while, they've been both agency side and in-house side, they've done lots of different industries, and they love SEO. Which A, is easy to tell from interviewing them, and speaking to them, because they're very passionate about it, but B, they wanted to get it across in a way that everyone can understand.Because SEO is actually, traditionally, a very male industry, it's also very tech-y sounding, and people do get a bit overwhelmed by that. They wanted to bring it in a way that actually, it isn't as difficult as it sounds, and there are some things that everybody can do. Don't get me wrong, there's some very smart stuff that I'm sure is very difficult that these girls do, but for me, there is definitely stuff you can take away from this.So, Hannah is a Chartered Institute of Marketing qualified marketer, with a decade of experience, and she has gained specialising in digital marketing, SEO in particular. Her favourite aspects of SEO are pretty much everything, from technical deep dives, to strategic content, and link building in-depth analysis. I don't know what on Earth I'm talking about, but they're going to help us find that out. She is one half of an SEO power couple, as Hannah's husband is also an SEO expert. When Hannah's not working, she likes to do nothing more than hiking and mountain climbing with Dom, very different from SEO.Okay, Sarah is also a qualified Institute of Marketer, and she has around seven years experience in marketing, specialising in digital and SEO. Over the years, Sarah's worked both in-house and agency side, and has done loads of different campaigns. Sarah is a self confessed geek when it comes to SEO, and loves the challenges that comes with both industry, and as a whole, creating and implementing strategic SEO campaigns that drive traffic and conversion for her clients. Sarah works as an SEO specialist at LikeMind Media, and when she's not doing that, she likes to go on adventures with her girlfriend and her pooch, Millie the Jack Russel. And also, this is very interesting, she blows off steam playing roller derby, where she goes by the name Badass Bambi. I believe it, I believe every word.Anyway, I think you're going to love these girls, they give such good advice around SEO. And, if you want to find out more, and want to go deeper, then their podcast is definitely the place to do it. Like I said, it's called SEO SAS. And, I just want to put a caveat, when we recorded this episode, which was probably quite a few weeks ago ... in fact, it was the beginning of Jan, I think, if I remember rightly, everything was correct at the time. But, as with social media, things can change fairly fast, so obviously if something has changed, then don't come shouting at us, because it was right as we recorded it. Anyway, I will leave you to listen to people who know way more about this than...