INSIGHTS 

SEO Essentials: For internal teams to drive growth. 

SEO can be an enigma and as Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land put it: “SEO is only not seen as rocket science by those who already know it.”

At Teapot, we understand that internal marketing teams often lack the resources and expertise but not through any fault - people wear many hats in organisations and sometimes work is put on hold but SEO is a long game and a continuous one at that. There are absolutely elements to SEO that can only be carried out by very experienced SEOs but there are, however, some very basic things that you can do for yourself.

Keywords, Metadata, and Backlinks.

Think of these three things as the building blocks of SEO in a very basic form.

Keywords: These are the words and phrases your potential customers use when searching online. Think about what your ideal client would type into Google to find your products or services. Research relevant keywords and weave them naturally into your website content. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner (hyperlink) or Mangools to find relevant terms and naturally weave them into your content.

It’s a good idea to look over your top pages and use Google Search Console. Start by filtering the last 12 months of data in GSC to exclude queries containing words relating to your brand name. This way you’ll be able to see all generic queries people use to find you. You can use a REGEX formula to exclude more than one word or phrase associated with your brand and this is particularly helpful if your business was historically known by an alternative name.

Once you’ve done this, filter your pages by looking for the exact url and then map out what each of your pages top queries for clicks and impressions are. You’ll be able to see whether there is a misalignment with your content and how Google is interpreting your page content. You can then decide what your keyword for the page should be, ensure there is no cannibalisation with other pages and then plan to review the content on the page to see if it needs more copy or potentially more products to rank for high search volume keywords.

Top Tip: Try to put yourself in the shoes of your target audience. What might they search for to find you and your competitors’ products or services? Also then ask yourself if you have enough of a product offering for them and can they easily enquire/buy from the page they land on (this can then influence product inventory decisions, user experience and page content). If your target audience gets frustrated with your page through lack of alignment with their query and a lack of options, they might go back to search results to look for other options.
Metadata: This is the behind-the-scenes information that tells search engines what your web pages are about. Write compelling meta titles and descriptions that entice users to click. Keep titles under 60 characters and descriptions under 160. Your metadata is what you see on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) and Google does sometimes change these based on what it understands from the page content. The metadata should include the keywords you’ve mapped out for each page. Metadata alone will not lead to better rankings but metadata should be something that you check over and include on a very basic level.
Backlinks: These are links from other websites to yours. Think of them as votes of confidence from other online sources. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the more trustworthy your website appears to search engines. Focus on earning backlinks by creating valuable content others want to share or reference. Be very careful with building backlinks, buying them is not good practice and can cause great harm to your website. There may be instances where a website that ranks much higher than you can provide a backlink to a page on your website and overwrite the hard work you’ve done with on page optimisation. These backlinks can be disavowed and backlink audits can be useful to identify these toxic links.

"On-page SEO is no longer satisfied by raw keyword use. Matching keywords to searcher intent is critical."

Rand Fishkin

Rand Fishkin

SparkToro

Technical SEO.

Technical SEO is usually best carried out by someone who is extremely experienced with SEO and it is quite a broad umbrella term but there are some low level elements of SEO that fall into this category that you can do for yourself.

Internal Links - Internal Links are not only a great way of helping your website visitors find the content they need, but they can also help Google understand the relationship between your pages.

Indexing - Use Google Search Console to understand how Google is interpreting your website.

Google Search Console > Indexing > Pages

Here, you’ll find a table with a list of reasons for a page not being indexed in Google and example pages. You need to be very mindful with GSC and take some of the information with a pinch of salt. As with any tool, “issues” will always be flagged but you’ll need to use your discerning eye to understand whether or not these things really are issues or not. For example, “page with redirect” - this isn’t always an issue if a redirect has been put in place and the page where the users have been redirected to is now indexed.

You can also inspect specific urls to check when they were last crawled and whether they have been indexed or not.

Crawl Budget - Google only has so much time to crawl your website pages so you want to make sure that it focuses on the pages that are most important. Look for page types that you don’t need to see in search results like pages with urls with the search parameter in them - (usually ?s after the url) and make sure that your robots.txt file is up to date.

Leveraging Rich Snippets through Schema Markup.

Want your website to stand out on search results? Schema markup can help and is another element of technical SEO you might want to consider.

Schema markup is also commonly known as structured data. Essentially it’s a snippet of code that literally markups elements on a page and this helps give search engines a helping hand with understanding the content on your website. Basically, by implementing schema markup, you’re telling Google exactly what the page is about. The key for schema is consistency.

Through implementing schema markup, you let the Search Engine better understand what is on your page which can then lead to rich snippets, which are enhanced search results that display more information, making your listing more eye-catching. For example, in the “People Also Ask Section”, if you markup your FAQs with FAQ schema, you stand a better chance of being featured in this section on Search Engines.

So what types of schema markup is there?

Technically, there are over 700 different types of schema markup, so it’s best to focus your efforts and time on the ones most commonly associated with SEO:

FAQs - Using FAQ Markup will help Search Engines understand the questions and answers on the page.

Product Schema - Using Product Schema will help Google understand your products including associated elements like cost, skus, product titles etc.

Articles - Article Schema is great for blogs, it helps Google understand that the nature of the page is article/blog based.

Location - There are several location markups but Geo-location is a big one.

Event - Event schema will help your event pages fall into event sections in SERPs.

Organisational - This defines what type of business you are and core details and therefore helps Google understand your organisation better.

Local Business - This is similar to the elements in organisational schema but includes things like geo location to improve local rankings.

The power of Local SEO.

If you run a location-based business, this one’s for you. In addition to adding local business schema, the following elements can also assist with boosting your website’s authority and subsequent rankings in search engines.

  • Google Business Profile: Claim and optimise your listing with accurate contact details, photos, and customer reviews. This is a good one
  • Local Keywords: Use phrases like “best coffee shop in [your city]” to attract nearby searchers.
  • NAP Consistency: Ensure your Name, Address, and Phone number are the same everywhere online - your website, directories, and social platforms.

Creating SEO-optimised blog posts.

Blogs aren’t just great for building authority; they’re SEO goldmines but you shouldn’t just write a blog for the sake of writing a blog - Google can tell and you won’t see much benefit.

Your blog content should be unique, useful and relevant to your website - Google does not want to and is unlikely to rank any blogs that provide no value to searchers. Follow the E-E-A-T guidelines for this.

Start with search intent and write content that answers your audience’s burning questions. Always use headings wisely and structure your posts with H1s, H2s, and H3s to break up content and signal importance to search engines. Internal links will guide readers (and search bots) to other important pages on your site by linking naturally throughout your content.

Tip - Visuals with Alt Text: Include high-quality images with descriptive alt text to boost image SEO and accessibility.

So even though SEO is such a huge and broad subject, there are some very basic, foundational and essential things that your internal team can work on in house. If you do not have an SEO strategy, now is the time to write one.

Some of our SEO services:

  • Audits - Link audits, general and content
  • Consultancy
  • SEO strategy
  • GAP analysis and competitor research

Need some help with driving growth with SEO? Contact us today.

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