SEO is a bit like vegemite - you either love it or you hate it - right?

Well, no.

The thing is, if you own a website, a business, or just sell any kind of product or service - you need to be thinking about SEO.

SEO is the thing that takes your website from mediocre, or really poor and getting stuck on page 10, 11 or even lower in the Google Search results and propels it up to the first few pages.

The reason I don’t say page one is that there are no miracle cures. Yes, you do need to be on page one eventually.

But, that kind of thing takes hard work and diligence. What SEO is not, then, is a quick fix and for that take the word from a leading SEO Sydney agency.

Placing a paid Google Ad that then appears on the first page is probably a safer bet for getting there at the start.

So watch out, then, for scammers who are promising these sorts of results with just a ‘one-time transfer’.

Unfortunately, especially since we’ve all been living in the age of COVID and many businesses were forced to rethink traditional models that rely only on physical stores, these sort of scams have been rife.

As with all things, offers that seem too good to be true, generally are.

There are a few technical elements to a successful SEO strategy, and we will go through those in more detail in this article. These might be ‘quick fixes’, but they are not all there is to SEO.

In fact, just so you know how much of a long-game a good SEO strategy really is - a core component of it involves curating content that is ever-green, actionable and informative.

Not only that - but your content actually needs to be interesting.

If writing is not your thing - that’s totally fine. After all, there are loads of copywriters out there who are more than willing to write for your website. But be very wary of those that promise thousands of words for an exceptionally low fee.

When paying writers, ask yourself if you would be happy with that salary. If not, they are probably not going to produce high quality content. Instead, they will just regurgitate articles they’ve previously written, or, worse still, use software that just spins articles by itself.

So, why do I need SEO?

As a business owner, especially one who has been in business for a long time, you might be tempted to think you’re already doing well enough just on word of mouth or reputation alone.

Not to say that this is not currently true - but times are changing. If last year’s ‘crisis’ taught business-owners anything, it should be to never take anything for granted.

At the end of the day, drumming up more business can never be a bad thing and you should want your business model to be sustainable long into the future.

Why not have the best of both worlds?

Traditional business methods combined with the marvels of technology and SEO?

Isn’t SEO just about being sneaky?

I’m not going to beat around the bush.

Yes. This kind of malpractice, known as black hat SEO does exist, but it's not all there is to it. Remember the age-old adage - there are two sides to every story, or, in our case - two different coloured hats to wear.

A message to those people still thinking they can get away with this malpractice - be warned. These kinds of strategies, if engaged in, are actually likely to get you in big trouble with Google who takes a strict approach to dealing with offenders.

A couple of pretty well-known brands have actually been caught over the years. The result for them, you ask?

Well, not only does Google like to impose fines - there is also the potential for your pages to be de-indexed. Google can also take manual action where the search engine forces you to fall in the rankings.

Ok, so what’s white hat SEO?

Well, I am glad you asked.

First of all, as I already mentioned way back in the introduction - the first and most important part of SEO is all about content, content and more content.

No matter how hard nor how much you focus on technical elements of your page - if there is nothing on your site of interest for real people (i.e. not search engine bots), there’s really no point.

Users may click on the site, but they definitely won’t stay around.

Legitimate ways of working on SEO include adding external links to other reputable sites in your content, guest-posting on other sites or blogs in exchange for backlinks to your own sites - or just writing content that’s good enough for other people on the Internet to actually want to link to.

Internal links within your site are also important as it encourages users to stick around once they’ve arrived.

Of course, keywords are important. Tools like the Google Search Console are fantastic.

The other part of it is all to do with on-page SEO optimisation.

This can be a little bit trickier if website development is not your thing. You need your site to be able to load quickly (this keeps users around, and the search engines happy). These days, it’s also a good idea for your site to be mobile-friendly.

Things like clean titles, meta description and URL as well as internal links to encourage people to stick around.

For us here at Ambire, a Sydney SEO agency, this is our bread and butter.