However, the updates actually make it easier for many businesses in Nigeria to get to the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs) by adopting very straightforward SEO practices and avoiding those deemed by the mighty Google as ‘black hat’.

There’s no secret to good SEO, although it does require some de-mystifying and mastering. Here we give you some top SEO tips that actually ranks your business higher in Nigeria. These tips will further help to maximise your chances of hitting the top spot when potential customers and clients are making searches relating to your business. Here are the tips:

Don’t Overthink your SEO

Google wants its users to have a better search experience, and for that reason, it matches search enquiries to web pages that provide the most recent information with the most relevance to the searches being made. So if you avoid thinking about the complexities of SEO and focus your own effort on providing a good experience for visitors to your website, you’re more likely to be successful. Once you know your business, and you have identified the keywords that describes your business, which are the same or similar keywords your visitors will be searching for online, the rest becomes easier.

Keep Content Fresh, Compelling and Relevant

When people are searching online for goods or services or just information on a field of interest, they want to get the most accurate, relevant and up-to-date results. If you regularly update and refresh your web content, your results will be favoured by the search engine. Your prospects don’t want to have their time wasted by reading something that is not specific to their enquiry. So once you have engaged interest, you want to stimulate it further. Find out more about how to keep your contents fresh and well-linked for maximum SEO impact – click here.

Make Sure your Website is Mobile-Friendly

Most people use their mobile devices to make their online searches and so you have to make sure you deliver a good user experience no matter what device your visitor is using. It is important to optimise your website so it displays neatly on a small screen as well as a large screen, and it’s easy to navigate and packed with functionality. Having a quick website load time is the key, if you don’t want visitors to lose interest while trying to access information. You can use software like Website Auditor to crawl your site regularly and identify any technical flaws. Please note that search engines like Google favours businesses using responsive website design with higher search engine result page ranking over their competitors using non-responsive website design.

Building Relationships are more important than Links

Link-building has always been considered an essential part of good SEO, but not any more however. Now it’s more important to build your credibility within your sphere of enterprise by creating relationships with non-competing concerns. Credibility is built when others perceive your brand as an authority or influencer and as a consequence, they link to your website. For example, if you have a gym you can create a relationship with a health supplement provider and develop two-way SEO advantages that way. Build connections that add value to your client or customer base and you will naturally attract more traffic to your online content.

Pay Close Attention to your Keyword Use

Don’t stuff your website with too many relative keywords and expect to see your business ranking anywhere on the first page of SERPs. This is now broadly considered the ultimate act in black hat SEO and can result in penalties which would definitely damage your online visibility.

The importance of keyword research cannot be overemphasized – be specific and moderate in the use of keywords. You’ll know that there are endless variants on the words relating to your products, goods or services and so you can still get away with a liberal smattering but the important thing is to keep them in context.

In other words, your content has to make sense and should be well written to attract positive attention from Google searches. Mentioning where your workshop or offices are based too often is known as ‘Location stuffing’, which is also a cardinal sin in SEO. However, you can still mention your location and any other localities near you as long as you do it so that it reads well and makes grammatical sense.

Research your Customers and Create Keywords that Relate

The most important aspect of SEO is to know what questions your target market is going to be asking the oracle, that is Google. You want to get into the demographic of your audience and relate to them in the terminology they’re familiar with so that it engenders good communication and increase sales.

Consider the fact that they will be typing questions in the search engine box and if your website contains the answer to those specific questions, it will naturally rank higher in the results. Remember that you’re an expert in your field and your customers and potential customers want to pick your brains. If you become a trusted source of information, your name will be foremost in the minds of your audience when it comes to buying.

Use Meta Descriptions to attract more Traffic

This is an area that’s often neglected by marketers when it comes to SEO. Each page on your website can be described very succinctly in a short sentence which is then ‘tagged’ to the page to encourage click-through to your website on SERPs.

You can see when you search with Google yourself that some of the results have your search terms highlighted in the heading, and some have a short but sweet description. That is how using Meta data displays if you use them correctly.

Conclusion

There is no secret to achieving SEO success if you are passionate about your business and just want to tell the world about it. If you’re just trying to get as much online attention as you can have without having anything to deliver to the user, you’ll be cutting off your nose to spite your face.

The current Google search algorithm has zero-tolerance for spammy SEO and is determined to stamp it out in favour of websites that represent value to those using its search engine.

By following the above tip, and keeping your website specific and of great use to interested visitors, you really can’t go wrong.

If you have already setup Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics for your website, please follow the steps below. If you are yet to do this or not sure if it has been setup or not, please contact us and we will be happy to assist further.

Here are the steps on how to share Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics with TopYouGo Digital Marketing Agency:

1. Sign it to your Google Webmaster Tools Page here.
2. Once you have successfully signed in, find the website you want to grant access to, and click Manage Property drop down on the right, and then select Add or remove users.
3. On the Users and Property Owners page, click on Add a New User.
4. Add us as a new user using the email address supplied on the project questionnaire, and select Full permission as shown below. Click on Add button to finish the process.

Top Search Engines such as Google and Bing offer a means to generate targeted traffic through the use of keywords. Hence the reason why you want the best keywords matching your contents, web pages, and businesses. Keywords can be likened to titling a textbook. The title of a textbook tells what the book is all about at a first glance, and in a nutshell. When readers look for a particular book amongst other books in a library shelf, the title guides the reader in making the right choice. A wrongly titled book would attract the wrong readers, just as it is with keywords, hence the reason why keywords are so much of importance in internet marketing.

Considering the analogy used above, a keyword can be defined as a word or phrase (consisting of more than one words) that describes the content of a post, article or web page, while keyword research analysis is the process of closely examining each keywords against several factors such as keyword complexity, difficulty and density, conversion rate, search volumes and demand. Webmasters have made it possible to be able to track keywords typed into search engines by visitors, which is often available to SEO experts when performing a keyword research analysis, alongside several other keyword research tools. A common starting point for SEO keyword research is the Google Keyword Planner tool which advises on estimated keyword search volume as well as the cost of AdWords Campaign for these keywords, which is determined by the profitability and competitiveness of such keywords. Another similar tool to consider is Bing Ads Intelligence tool.

It is also worth mentioning that the number of words in your keywords will hugely determine your success. Long tail keywords (that is, keywords with more than 3 words) are unique searches which are more targeted. Long tail keywords generally provide a better conversion rate, which gives value for money. In today’s world, short tail keywords (that is, keywords with 1 to 3 words) is quietly facing out as it has a lower conversion rate and are generally less searched. A good keyword research analysis will help you to choose the most profitable and high demand keywords which can equally rank high on Search Engines easily, with the right measures put in place. It also allows you to proactively respond to market demands and provide contents, products or services that web users are actively searching for.

Without deviating too much from the initial question “what are the best practices for carrying out a keyword research and analysis in SEO marketing?”, here are some guidelines:

1. a) Know your competitors! Have a good list of relevant keywords used by your successful competitors. Start with these lists.

For the purpose of this article, let’s assume a main competitor’s keyword for a service provided is “copywriting service”. Please note that using keywords in quote provides exact match in the results provided by the search engine, but in our case, it won’t be required.

In the image below, Google search result for keyword “copywriting service” shows over 3 million results. This is huge! It will take a lot of effort and Website SEO Auditing to beat the websites in the Top 10 as seen in the image below.

1. b) If you targeting a particular niche, location or country e.g. students, children, men, women, Lagos, Nigeria, London, Qatar, Chicago, Canada etc., it’s best to add it to your keyword so you streamline the result to your interest. Local SEO comes in handy for location specific keywords.

Let’s make the keyword more targeted by adding Lagos to the keyword, that is, “copywriting service Lagos”.

From the above image, Google search result for keyword “copywriting service Lagos” shows 27,000 results, which obviously looks more promising and achievable.

1. c) What adjectives best describe your web page? If necessary, use adjectives such as cheap, good, best, buy, quality, affordable, professional, premium, free, tips, top, discount or anyone particular to your niche.

Think about how else the search result can be narrowed down so as to lessen competitions? Looking at image 2 above, the top competitor added more keyword variation using “Professional”.

Google search result for keyword “professional copywriting service Lagos” shows 283,000 results which seems like a good long-tail keyword with more search results, and could easily get top ranked for both “copywriting service Lagos” and “professional copywriting service Lagos” keywords on Search engines.

1. d) What other similar words (synonyms) could your visitors possibly use in place of your keywords? In our example, “copywriting service” could also be regarded as “content writing service” by searchers online. All these variations can be used to form a long list of keywords.

Other possible long tail keywords that can be used in our example are: best copywriting service, quality copywriting service in Nigeria, etc.

2. When you form you own possible list of keywords, use Google Keyword Planner tool and/or Bing Ads Intelligence Keyword tool to check the search volume and profitability of the keywords.

3. After selecting your final keywords, put them in the right places without stuffing your web content or page with too many keywords. Your keywords should appear in your Meta Title, Meta Description, Meta keywords and severally in the body of your text, but most importantly, in the first sentence or paragraph. Best practice is to use your keywords once per 100 words of text.

Researched keywords are more effectual if the above best practices are followed. If ever in doubt, you can hire an experienced SEO analyst to perform this task for you. It is worth spending the extra quid to lay a good foundation, than playing a guessing game with your online success. Furthermore, it is worth knowing what Google thinks of the use of keywords in meta tags.

Lastly, the best keyword is the one with a lot of monthly search volumes, but yet not so competitive, and can also be easily ranked at the top of search engine result page.