10 Quick Wins For Your SEO Clients

As an SEO agency or freelancer, you know that improving your client’s SEO presence is a long-term process. Many clients fail to understand this (even if you tell them), and many will want to see results fairly quickly.

In this article, we’ve created 10 quick wins for your SEO clients which each take less than 30 minutes to do and will show results within a few weeks.

1. Google Plus for business

If your client doesn’t have a Google Plus business page set up, you can set one up in about 10-15 minutes by clicking here. A Google Plus page is FREE to create, and once you insert your client’s business into the right categories they will appear in local search results on Google and Google Maps.

When looking for local bricks and mortar businesses, some consumers start their search with Google Maps. It will take around 1-2 weeks for your client’s business to be listed on the local map search. This listing will increase website traffic and direct phone call inquiries.

2. Add title & heading tags to all pages

If you’re working with a client who has never done SEO in the past, there’s a good chance that they are not optimising title tags or using heading tags within their pages. Go through all their pages and start optimising title tags and adding heading tag titles to their pages. If their website is hosted on WordPress, then by default their title will usually have the H1 tag. There should only be one H1 tag per page and it should include the keyword. Make the other heading tags H2-H5 using the appropriate keywords.

Check out this study from NoHatDigital where tweaking title tags resulted in a 47% increase in search traffic.

3. Check their images for alt tags

If your client wasn’t using heading tags, they probably didn’t assign alt tags for their images either. Go through their image database and assign the correct alt tag to each image based on the keyword you’re targeting for that page. When your heading and alt tags are connected with the same keywords, it gives Google a better idea of the keyword you’re trying to rank for and will place their page accordingly in the search. You aren’t required to upload the images again; simply edit their alt tags – it doesn’t take too long.

4. Include long-tail keywords in their copy

Of all the SEO on-page quick wins for your clients, adding long-tail keywords to your client’s page copy is my favorite.

Why?

Because it only takes 15 minutes and in terms of ROI, long-tail keywords often draw the highest quality visitors. Long-tail keywords are searched by consumers who are near the end of their buying journey or have a specific problem they need solving. If you can redirect this type of prospect to your client’s website, there’s a high chance they will convert into a lead or sale. There are many ways you can discover long-tail keywords, such as looking at your client’s organic search history in Google Analytics, their search history in Google Webmaster Tools, or even by asking Google suggestions.

Long-tail keywords are easier to rank for because they are less competitive than seed keywords. If your client’s website has a low SEO score (PA and DA), then focusing on long-tail keywords will be the safest bet to driving organic traffic to their site.

5. Reach out to partners

Obtaining high-quality backlinks is super tough these days. The average webmaster receives dozens of cold emails each week from other webmasters asking if they can check out their new cool infographic, or asking them to check out the new article that they will love. These are not easy wins; well, not anymore. Easy wins are your client’s partners and suppliers, many of whom will have been in business for many years and have aged website domains (which Google loves!).

Reach out to them and ask them if they can link your client on their partner, distributor, or supplier page. Offer to write the copy so all they need to do is copy and paste it. As you’re contacting businesses that work alongside your client, you should call and ask them. Not only is it more personal, but you also segment yourself away from the dozens of emails they get from people asking for backlinks.

6. Refresh their content

Google Search Console will reveal where each of your client’s pages ranks on Google. To find this you need to visit Search Traffic > Search Analytics and then sort by pages and include the position.

As you can see above, one of our websites ranks on the first page of Google for several pages. As I go deeper into their positional rankings I start to see pages that rank outside the first page (positions 11-19).

By adding extra content in the form of words, images, videos, and audio, you can push up a page’s ranking to the first page. This will considerably increase the amount of website traffic. Read the top three websites that rank for your targeted keyword and compare these articles against your clients. Then add more of everything that these pages have that your client doesn’t.

It won’t take Google more than a few weeks to rescan your page and push it higher in the rankings if you made the right changes.

Tip: use the Google fetch tool to let Google know when you make changes to any of your client’s pages. I suggest you start by refreshing pages that are currently listed on the second or third pages of Google (positions 11-29) as these have the greatest potential to increase your client’s website traffic with the least amount of work, compared to pages that rank on pages 4-8 of Google.

7. Check if they are mobile friendly

If your client’s website is not mobile friendly, they may as well not have one. You can check if it is mobile friendly by using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.

If their website is not mobile friendly, there are hundreds of free themes on WordPress that you can use. If their website is hosted using a bespoke service and you’re unable to make changes directly, get in touch with their web developer and make them aware of this huge problem. Check out this Mobile SEO Guide from InfoBunny for more tips.

8. Improve website speed

Speed matters with SEO. If your competitors’ websites load a few seconds faster than your client’s, that can be the difference between them ranking above your client for most search terms (assuming everything else is near equal).
To get an instant snapshot of your client’s website speed, use PageSpeed Insights and Pingdom Tools.

Google will reveal where your client’s website is lagging and how you can remedy the situation. If they are hosting a website on WordPress, then downloading a few plugins will see your numbers go up. Depending on the nature of your client’s website, it might not be possible to get 100/100; aim to get at least 75/100 for both mobile and desktop. From my experience, e-commerce stores typically score lower due to all the images and buttons listed on their product pages. Amazon.co.uk only score 65/100.

Increased site speed will reduce bounce rate and increase time spent on the website.

9. Install an XML sitemap

An XML sitemap is the blueprint of an entire website. It shows URL links to where Google bots can find all pages and posts, how they are structured, and when they were last edited. If your client’s website is badly structured, pages are created often or dynamically (e-commerce), they have archived content, or their website is new, then an XML sitemap helps Google bots discover everything on client’s website with ease. Google XML Sitemaps is the best free WordPress plugin that will create a sitemap in seconds for your client, or you can download Yoast which is an all-in-one SEO tool for WordPress and includes a sitemap generator.

10. Re-write page titles and meta descriptions

Rewriting page titles and improving meta descriptions are instant wins if you craft good copy. Searchers ARE reading page titles and meta descriptions when deciding which website is worthy of their click. A good headline needs to provide the searcher with instant gratification on what they will learn upon clicking the link. When I searched for “how to serve in tennis,” these results appeared:

Each title solves a problem or states what I’m going to learn. “With pictures,” “7 steps,” “Serve Basics,” “Foundations of serving in Tennis,” “(for Righties)” etc.

Each subject line has its own value proposition based on what the searcher wants to learn. Come up with a creative page title that provides the learning outcome and then back that title up with an informational meta description.

Use the problem-solution style of writing: lead with the problem they are facing and then tell them the solution you’re providing. This SEO quick win is pretty much instant, and your client will see an increase in traffic right away.

[blockquote background=”#fff7dd”]Check out this detailed guide to writing great page titles.

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Your turn…

If you drink a strong cup of coffee and put your phone in your pocket, you can implement all 10 tips on your client’s website in a single work day.

Some of these SEO quick wins will have an instant impact whereas others will take a few days or weeks before you notice an increase in traffic, click-through rates, reduced bounce rates, or increased time spent on pages.

They can all be done in less than 15-30 minutes and, when compounded together, can make a big impact on your client’s website.

What is your favorite SEO quick win for clients?